Related Experiment Video
Updated: Nov 27, 2025
11:21
Cooling an Optically Trapped Ultracold Fermi Gas by Periodical Driving
Published on: March 30, 2017
7.7K
Sub-kelvin temperature management in ion traps for optical clocks
T Nordmann1, A Didier1, M Doležal2
1Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), Bundesallee 100, 38116 Braunschweig, Germany.
The Review of Scientific Instruments
|December 2, 2020
Summary
New scalable linear ion traps for optical atomic clocks show minimal temperature rise, reducing systematic uncertainties. This advancement is crucial for high-precision quantum metrology and computation using trapped ions.
Area of Science:
- Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
- Quantum Information Science
- Metrology
Background:
- Systematic uncertainties in optical atomic clocks are significantly impacted by AC Stark shifts from thermal radiation.
- Accurate knowledge of the thermal behavior of radiofrequency (RF)-driven ion traps is essential for trapped-ion optical clocks.
- Scalable linear ion traps, while enabling advanced quantum applications, present challenges in precise temperature determination and uncertainty assessment.
Purpose of the Study:
- To present scalable linear ion traps designed for optical clocks with significantly reduced operational temperature rise.
- To investigate and quantify the thermal distribution and temperature at the ion position within these advanced ion traps.
Main Methods:
- Utilized a finite-element model, refined with experimental measurements, to determine the thermal distribution within the ion trap.
- Employed an infrared camera and integrated temperature sensors to investigate trap temperatures under varying RF drive frequencies and amplitudes.
- Evaluated trap performance for various ion species including In+, Al+, Lu+, Ca+, Sr+, and Yb+.
Main Results:
- Demonstrated that the temperature rise at the ion position, due to RF heating, remains below 700 mK for typical trapping parameters.
- Achieved control over temperature rise with an uncertainty on the order of a few hundred millikelvin.
- The resulting uncertainty in the trap-related blackbody radiation shift is in the 10^-19 to 10^-20 regime for specific ions (Yb+ and In+).
Conclusions:
- The developed scalable linear ion traps exhibit excellent thermal performance, crucial for next-generation optical atomic clocks.
- The precise temperature control minimizes systematic uncertainties, paving the way for enhanced accuracy in quantum metrology.
- These findings support the use of scalable linear ion traps in advanced quantum simulation and computation platforms.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
01:27Atomic Spectroscopy: Effects of Temperature
721
Atomization, converting samples into gas-phase atoms and ions, is essential for atomic spectroscopy. The flame temperature required for atomization affects the efficiency of the atomic spectroscopic methods by increasing the atomization efficiency and the relative population of the excited and ground states.
At thermal equilibrium, the relative populations of excited and ground state atoms can be estimated using the Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution. For example, an increase in temperature...
At thermal equilibrium, the relative populations of excited and ground state atoms can be estimated using the Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution. For example, an increase in temperature...
721
02:39Phase Transitions: Melting and Freezing
14.1K
Heating a crystalline solid increases the average energy of its atoms, molecules, or ions, and the solid gets hotter. At some point, the added energy becomes large enough to partially overcome the forces holding the molecules or ions of the solid in their fixed positions, and the solid begins the process of transitioning to the liquid state or melting. At this point, the temperature of the solid stops rising, despite the continual input of heat, and it remains constant until all of the solid is...
14.1K