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Updated: May 14, 2026

Experimental Methods for Trapping Ions Using Microfabricated Surface Ion Traps
Published on: August 17, 2017
Pinning an ion with an intracavity optical lattice
Rasmus B Linnet1, Ian D Leroux, Mathieu Marciante
1QUANTOP, Danish National Research Center for Quantum Optics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
Abstract:
We report one-dimensional pinning of a single ion by an optical lattice. A standing-wave cavity produces the lattice potential along the rf-field-free axis of a linear Paul trap. The ion's localization is detected by measuring its fluorescence when excited by standing-wave fields with the same period, but different spatial phases. The experiments agree with an analytical model of the localization process, which we test against numerical simulations. For the best localization achieved, the ion's average coupling to the cavity field is enhanced from 50% to 81(3)% of its maximum possible value, and we infer that the ion is bound in a lattice well with over 97% probability.
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