Creation of two-dimensional Coulomb crystals of ions in oblate Paul traps for quantum simulations

Abstract

We develop the theory to describe the equilibrium ion positions and phonon modes for a trapped ion quantum simulator in an oblate Paul trap that creates two-dimensional Coulomb crystals in a triangular lattice. By coupling the internal states of the ions to laser beams propagating along the symmetry axis, we study the effective Ising spin-spin interactions that are mediated via the axial phonons and are less sensitive to ion micromotion. We find that the axial mode frequencies permit the programming of Ising interactions with inverse power law spin-spin couplings that can be tuned from uniform to r −3 with DC voltages. Such a trap could allow for interesting new geometrical configurations for quantum simulations on moderately sized systems including frustrated magnetism on triangular lattices or Aharonov-Bohm effects on ion tunneling. The trap also incorporates periodic boundary conditions around loops which could be employed to examine time crystals.

Dipolar quantum logic for freely rotating trapped molecular ions

“…This technique may be useful in the growing field of ultracold molecular ion trapping [35,36] and could aid efforts to scale trapped ion quantum computing to large numbers of qubits. It should also be extendable to many qubit systems, where it could allow, for example, quantum simulation of spin models with novel geometries [37].…”

Squeezed coherent states of motion for ions confined in quadrupole and octupole ion traps

“…Numerical simulations can be used to validate the method suggested in the paper and find the equilibrium configurations for trapped ions or the eigenvalues of the normal modes of oscillation [39]. The results in the paper are also valid for different quantum simulator architectures [45].…”

Segmented ion-trap fabrication using high precision stacked wafers

“…In recent years several experiments and applications have demonstrated the strength of this technology. Applications include laser written optical waveguides [31][32][33][34][35], creation of high aspect ratio micro-fluidic channels [30,31,36], flextures [36], MEMS [37] and ion traps [38][39][40]. We are currently aware of two companies offering a customizable femtosecond laser machining service: [31], which is known as Laser Affected Zone (LAZ).…”