Cooling Trapped Ions with Phonon Rapid Adiabatic Passage

Abstract

In recent demonstrations of the quantum charge-coupled device computer architecture, circuit times are dominated by cooling. Some motional modes of multi-ion crystals take orders of magnitude longer to cool than others because of low coolant ion participation. Here we demonstrate a new technique, that solves this issue by coherently exchanging the thermal populations of selected modes on timescales short compared to direct cooling. Using this method, which we call “phonon rapid adiabatic passage,” we can achieve subquanta temperatures from initial states with occupations as high as n¯∼200 quanta. Analogous to adiabatic rapid passage, we quasistatically couple these slow-cooling modes with fast-cooling modes using dc electric fields. When the crystal is then adiabatically ramped through the resultant avoided crossing, nearly complete phonon population exchange results. We demonstrate this on two-ion crystals, and show the indirect ground-state cooling of all radial modes—achieving an order of magnitude speedup compared to direct cooling. We also show the technique’s insensitivity to trap potential and control field fluctuations, and find that it still achieves subquanta temperatures starting as high as n¯∼200. Published by the American Physical Society 2024