Sympathetic electromagnetically-induced-transparency laser cooling of motional modes in an ion chain

Electromagnetically Induced Transparency Cooling of High-Nuclear-Spin Ions

We report the electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) cooling of ^{137}Ba^{+} ions with a nuclear spin of I=3/2, which are a good candidate of qubits for future large-scale trapped-ion quantum computing. EIT cooling of atoms or ions with a complex ground-state level structure is challenging due to the lack of an isolated Λ system, as the population can escape from the Λ system to reduce the cooling efficiency. We overcome this issue by leveraging an EIT pumping laser to repopulate the cooling subspace, ensuring continuous and effective EIT cooling. We cool the two radial modes of a single ^{137}Ba^{+} ion to average motional occupations of 0.08(5) and 0.15(7), respectively. Using the same laser parameters, we also cool all the ten radial modes of a five-ion chain to near their ground states. Our approach can be adapted to atomic species possessing similar level structures. It allows engineering of the EIT Fano-like spectrum, which can be useful for simultaneous cooling of modes across a wide frequency range, aiding in large-scale trapped-ion quantum information processing.

Sideband cooling of a trapped ion in strong sideband coupling regime

Conventional theoretical studies on the ground-state laser cooling of a trapped ion have mostly focused on the weak sideband coupling (WSC) regime, where the cooling rate is inverse proportional to the linewidth of the excited state. In a recent work [New J. Phys.23, 023018 (2021)10.1088/1367-2630/abe273], we proposed a theoretical framework to study the ground state cooling of a trapped ion in the strong sideband coupling (SSC) regime, under the assumption of a vanishing carrier transition. Here we extend this analysis to more general situations with nonvanishing carrier transitions, where we show that by properly tuning the coupling lasers a cooling rate proportional to the linewidth can be achieved. Our theoretical predictions closely agree with the corresponding exact solutions in the SSC regime, which provide an important theoretical guidance for sideband cooling experiments.

High-Fidelity Indirect Readout of Trapped-Ion Hyperfine Qubits

We propose and demonstrate a protocol for high-fidelity indirect readout of trapped ion hyperfine qubits, where the state of a ^{9}Be^{+} qubit ion is mapped to a ^{25}Mg^{+} readout ion using laser-driven Raman transitions. By partitioning the ^{9}Be^{+} ground-state hyperfine manifold into two subspaces representing the two qubit states and choosing appropriate laser parameters, the protocol can be made robust to spontaneous photon scattering errors on the Raman transitions, enabling repetition for increased readout fidelity. We demonstrate combined readout and back-action errors for the two subspaces of 1.2_{-0.6}^{+1.1}×10^{-4} and 0_{-0}^{+1.9}×10^{-5} with 68% confidence while avoiding decoherence of spectator qubits due to stray resonant light that is inherent to direct fluorescence detection.

Double-Electromagnetically-Induced-Transparency Ground-State Cooling of Stationary Two-Dimensional Ion Crystals

We theoretically and experimentally investigate double-electromagnetically-induced transparency (double-EIT) cooling of two-dimensional ion crystals confined in a Paul trap. The double-EIT ground-state cooling is observed for ^{171}Yb^{+} ions with a clock state, for which EIT cooling has not been realized like many other ions with a simple Λ scheme. A cooling rate of n[over ¯][over ˙]=34(±1.8)  ms^{-1} and a cooling limit of n[over ¯]=0.06(±0.059) are observed for a single ion. The measured cooling rate and limit are consistent with theoretical predictions. We apply double-EIT cooling to the transverse modes of two-dimensional (2D) crystals with up to 12 ions. In our 2D crystals, the micromotion and the transverse mode directions are perpendicular, which makes them decoupled. Therefore, the cooling on transverse modes is not disturbed by micromotion, which is confirmed in our experiment. For the center of mass mode of a 12-ion crystal, we observe a cooling rate and a cooling limit that are consistent with those of a single ion, including heating rates proportional to the number of ions. This method can be extended to other hyperfine qubits, and near ground-state cooling of stationary 2D crystals with large numbers of ions may advance the field of quantum information sciences.

Near Ground-State Cooling of Two-Dimensional Trapped-Ion Crystals with More than 100 Ions

We experimentally study electromagnetically induced transparency cooling of the drumhead modes of planar two-dimensional arrays with up to N≈190 Be^{+} ions stored in a Penning trap. Substantial sub-Doppler cooling is observed for all N drumhead modes. Quantitative measurements for the center-of-mass mode show near ground-state cooling with motional quantum numbers of n[over ¯]=0.3±0.2 obtained within 200  μs. The measured cooling rate is faster than that predicted by single particle theory, consistent with a quantum many-body calculation. For the lower frequency drumhead modes, quantitative temperature measurements are limited by frequency instabilities, but near ground-state cooling of the full bandwidth is strongly suggested. This advance will greatly improve the performance of large trapped ion crystals in quantum information and metrology applications.

3D Sisyphus Cooling of Trapped Ions

Using a laser polarization gradient, we realize 3D Sisyphus cooling of ^{171}Yb^{+} ions confined in and near the Lamb-Dicke regime in a linear Paul trap. The cooling rate and final mean motional energy of a single ion are characterized as a function of laser intensity and compared to semiclassical and quantum simulations. Sisyphus cooling is also applied to a linear string of four ions to obtain a mean energy of 1-3 quanta for all vibrational modes, an approximately order of magnitude reduction below Doppler cooled energies. This is used to enable subsequent, efficient sideband laser cooling.

Multispecies Trapped-Ion Node for Quantum Networking

Trapped atomic ions are a leading platform for quantum information networks, with long-lived identical qubit memories that can be locally entangled through their Coulomb interaction and remotely entangled through photonic channels. However, performing both local and remote operations in a single node of a quantum network requires extreme isolation between spectator qubit memories and qubits associated with the photonic interface. We achieve this isolation by cotrapping ^{171}Yb^{+} and ^{138}Ba^{+} qubits. We further demonstrate the ingredients of a scalable ion trap network node with two distinct experiments that consist of entangling the mixed species qubit pair through their collective motion and entangling a ^{138}Ba^{+} qubit with an emitted visible photon.

Sympathetic Ground State Cooling and Time-Dilation Shifts in an ^{27}Al^{+} Optical Clock

We report on Raman sideband cooling of ^{25}Mg^{+} to sympathetically cool the secular modes of motion in a ^{25}Mg^{+}-^{27}Al^{+} two-ion pair to near the three-dimensional (3D) ground state. The evolution of the Fock-state distribution during the cooling process is studied using a rate-equation simulation, and various heating sources that limit the efficiency of 3D sideband cooling in our system are discussed. We characterize the residual energy and heating rates of all of the secular modes of motion and estimate a secular motion time-dilation shift of -(1.9±0.1)×10^{-18} for an ^{27}Al^{+} clock at a typical clock probe duration of 150 ms. This is a 50-fold reduction in the secular motion time-dilation shift uncertainty in comparison with previous ^{27}Al^{+} clocks.

Heralded entanglement of two ions in an optical cavity

We demonstrate precise control of the coupling of each of two trapped ions to the mode of an optical resonator. When both ions are coupled with near-maximum strength, we generate ion-ion entanglement heralded by the detection of two orthogonally polarized cavity photons. The entanglement fidelity with respect to the Bell state Ψ+ reaches F≥(91.9±2.5)%. This result represents an important step toward distributed quantum computing with cavities linking remote atom-based registers.

Controlling and measuring quantum transport of heat in trapped-ion crystals

Measuring heat flow through nanoscale devices poses formidable practical difficulties as there is no "ampere meter" for heat. We propose to overcome this problem in a chain of trapped ions, where laser cooling the chain edges to different temperatures induces a heat current of local vibrations (vibrons). We show how to efficiently control and measure this current, including fluctuations, by coupling vibrons to internal ion states. This demonstrates that ion crystals provide an ideal platform for studying quantum transport, e.g., through thermal analogues of quantum wires and quantum dots. Notably, ion crystals may give access to measurements of the elusive bosonic fluctuations in heat currents and the onset of Fourier's law. Our results are strongly supported by numerical simulations for a realistic implementation with specific ions and system parameters.