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Updated: Mar 20, 2026

Experimental Methods for Trapping Ions Using Microfabricated Surface Ion Traps
Published on: August 17, 2017
Active stabilization of ion trap radiofrequency potentials
K G Johnson1, J D Wong-Campos1, A Restelli1
1Joint Quantum Institute and University of Maryland Department of Physics, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA.
Abstract:
We actively stabilize the harmonic oscillation frequency of a laser-cooled atomic ion confined in a radiofrequency (rf) Paul trap by sampling and rectifying the high voltage rf applied to the trap electrodes. We are able to stabilize the 1 MHz atomic oscillation frequency to be better than 10 Hz or 10 ppm. This represents a suppression of ambient noise on the rf circuit by 34 dB. This technique could impact the sensitivity of ion trap mass spectrometry and the fidelity of quantum operations in ion trap quantum information applications.
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