A system for trapping barium ions in a microfabricated surface trap
R. D. Graham,
S.-P. Chen,
T. Sakrejda,
J. Wright,
Z. Zhou,
B. B. Blinov
Affiliations
R. D. Graham
University of Washington, Department of Physics, Box 351560, Seattle, WA 98195-1560, USA
S.-P. Chen
University of Washington, Department of Electrical Engineering, 185 Stevens Way, Paul Allen Center - Room AE100R, Campus Box 352500, Seattle, WA 98195-2500, USA
T. Sakrejda
University of Washington, Department of Physics, Box 351560, Seattle, WA 98195-1560, USA
J. Wright
University of Washington, Department of Physics, Box 351560, Seattle, WA 98195-1560, USA
Z. Zhou
University of Washington, Department of Physics, Box 351560, Seattle, WA 98195-1560, USA
B. B. Blinov
University of Washington, Department of Physics, Box 351560, Seattle, WA 98195-1560, USA
We have developed a vacuum chamber and control system for rapid testing of microfabricated surface ion traps. Our system is modular in design and is based on an in-vacuum printed circuit board with integrated filters. We have used this system to successfully trap and cool barium ions and have achieved ion ‘dark' lifetimes of 31.6 s ± 3.4 s with controlled shuttling of ions. We provide a detailed description of the ion trap system including the in-vacuum materials used, control electronics and neutral atom source. We discuss the challenges presented in achieving a system which can work reliably over two years of operations in which the trap under test was changed at least 10 times.
