Design, fabrication and characterization of a micro-fabricated stacked-wafer segmented ion trap with two X-junctions

Abstract

We describe the implementation of a three-dimensional Paul ion trap fabricated from a stack of precision-machined silica glass wafers, which incorporates a pair of junctions for two-dimensional ion transport. The trap has 142 dedicated electrodes which can be used to define multiple potential wells in which strings of ions can be held. By supplying time-varying potentials, this also allows for transport and re-configuration of ion strings. We describe the design, simulation, fabrication and packaging of the trap, including explorations of different parameter regimes and possible optimizations and design choices. We give results of initial testing of the trap, including measurements of heating rates and junction transport.

A high-fidelity quantum matter-link between ion-trap microchip modules

“…For comparison, 3-dimensional (3D) microfabricated ion traps constructed using wafer stacking techniques achieve an alignment accuracy between symmetric electrodes in the order of 10s of micrometers when aligned manually 34 , 35 . Employing precision-machined self-aligning features directly integrated within the wafers 36 , 37 , or semi-automatic bonding processes 38 , have since reduced the alignment imprecision to ≤2.5 μm. The present piezo actuator solution therefore offers a level of alignment accuracy between separate trap modules that is comparable to the level currently reached between electrodes on stacked wafer trap designs.…”

Industrially microfabricated ion trap with 1 eV trap depth

“…Therefore, many early investigations were constrained to a planar electrode geometry, which results in lower trap depth (typically ∼100 meV) and highly asymmetric field lines [28,29], complicating the control of traps and making them more susceptible to ion loss [30,31]. Demonstrations of multi-segment 3D trap electrode structures have been achieved by stacking multiple layers of laser machined or etched material [22,[32][33][34], however the methods used to produce these traps were not compatible with standard semiconductor fabrication. However, these have achieved trap depths above 1 eV which results in long ion storage times [7,35], and have demonstrated higher levels of control in advanced tasks such as junction transport [33] and non-adiabatic ion transport [20,21].…”

Optimization and implementation of a surface-electrode ion trap junction

“…Junction traps have been demonstrated, for instance transportation with 0.05 to 0.1 quanta of average motional excitation per junction traverse has been realized using a three-dimensional trap fabricated from a stack of laser-machined alumina wafers [28,29]. More advanced laser machining technologies [30] have been used to implement a three-dimensional wafer trap with double junctions [31]. However, the complexities in assembling these three-dimensional wafer traps hamper their scalable reproduction.…”