Erlangen 2018 – scientific programme

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A: Fachverband Atomphysik

A 41: Poster Session IIIa

A 41.11: Poster

Thursday, March 8, 2018, 16:15–18:15, Orangerie

Coupled anharmonic oscillators in a two-dimensional ion trap array — •Philip Kiefer, Frederick Hakelberg, Sebastian Schnell, Jan-Philipp Schroeder, Mathias Wittemer, Govinda Clos, Ulrich Warring, and Tobias Schaetz — Physikalisches Institut, Universität Freiburg, Hermann-Herder-Str. 3, 79104 Freiburg

We investigate trapped atomic ions as a platform for quantum simulations [1]. Although one-dimensional systems have delivered groundbreaking results, scaling to larger size and dimension presents a major challenge. We follow a bottom-up approach of single ions in individually controlled trapping sites generated by microfabricated two-dimensional trap arrays. Individually trapped ions represent a system of coupled oscillators, meditated by the Coulomb force, experimentally demonstrated in one-dimensional traps [2].
In our case, we use an equilateral triangular surface trap array, with an ion-ion distance of 40µm, providing individual control of motional mode orientation and frequencies at each site [3]. We show that a large coherent state, generated by a controlled motional excitation, exchanges its population with the other trapping sites. The coupling of the ions can be further controlled by anharmonic contributions of the trapping potential. Moreover we have developed a hybrid magnet setup enabling coherence times of electronic superposition states of greater than six seconds.

[1] New J. Phys. 15, 085009 (2013)

[2] Nature 471, 196-203 (2011)

[3] Nat. Com. 7, 11839 (2016); Phys. Rev. A 94, 023401 (2016)