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Updated: Oct 2, 2025

Cooling an Optically Trapped Ultracold Fermi Gas by Periodical Driving
Published on: March 30, 2017
Coupling Two Laser-Cooled Ions via a Room-Temperature Conductor
Da An1, Alberto M Alonso1, Clemens Matthiesen1
1Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
Abstract:
We demonstrate coupling between the motions of two independently trapped ions with a separation distance of 620 μm. The ion-ion interaction is enhanced via a room-temperature electrically floating metallic wire which connects two surface traps. Tuning the motion of both ions into resonance, we show flow of energy with a coupling rate of 11 Hz. Quantum-coherent coupling is hindered by strong surface electric-field noise in our device. Our ion-wire-ion system demonstrates that room-temperature conductors can be used to mediate and tune interactions between independently trapped charges over distances beyond those achievable with free-space dipole-dipole coupling. This technology may be used to sympathetically cool or entangle remotely trapped charges and enable coupling between disparate physical systems.
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