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Updated: Apr 25, 2026

Experimental Methods for Trapping Ions Using Microfabricated Surface Ion Traps
Published on: August 17, 2017
State-independent experimental test of quantum contextuality with a single trapped ion
Xiang Zhang1, Mark Um1, Junhua Zhang1
1Center for Quantum Information, Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, People's Republic of China.
Abstract:
Using a single trapped ion, we have experimentally demonstrated state-independent violation of a recent version of the Kochen-Specker inequality in a three-level system (qutrit) that is intrinsically indivisible. Three ground states of the (171)Yb(+) ion representing a qutrit are manipulated with high fidelity through microwaves and detected with high efficiency through a two-step quantum jump technique. Qutrits constitute the most fundamental system to show quantum contextuality and our experiment represents the first one that closes the detection efficiency loophole for experimental tests of quantum contextuality in such a system.
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