Title: NIST Researchers Reduce Ion Trap Heating Rates by Two Orders of Magnitude
Summary:
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have made significant progress in reducing heating rates in ion traps used for quantum information processing (QIP). The team, led by the Ion Storage Group, has collaborated with the Wineland ion trap group to identify and mitigate the cause of anomalous heating in trapped ions.
The main obstacle to achieving long ground-state lifetimes for trapped ions has been the heating caused by fluctuating electric fields from trap electrodes. By carefully cleaning the electrodes in-situ, the researchers have demonstrated a two orders of magnitude reduction in ion heating rates. This breakthrough allows ion trap researchers to reduce ion-surface distances and potentially speed up quantum gates.
The team is currently developing a stylus ion trap that suspends an ion relatively high above the surface, enabling them to bring other surfaces close to the ion for testing cleaning procedures. This research aims to further reduce ion trap heating rates and improve overall performance of trapped-ion QIP systems.
The potential impact of this work is significant for the field of quantum computing, as it addresses one of the main challenges in trapped-ion QIP. The implementation of these findings could lead to more efficient and reliable quantum computing systems based on trapped ions.
Source: https://www.nist.gov/programs-projects/ion-traps
Keywords: trap, ion, heating, quantum
