National Institute of Standards and Technology, 325 Broadway, Boulder, Colorado 80305, USA.
Phys Rev Lett. 2012 Sep 7;109(10):103001. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.103001. Epub 2012 Sep 4.
Motional heating of trapped atomic ions is a major obstacle to their use as quantum bits in a scalable quantum computer. The detailed physical origin of this heating is not well understood, but experimental evidence suggests that it is caused by electric-field noise emanating from the surface of the trap electrodes. In this study, we have investigated the role of adsorbates on the electrodes by identifying contaminant overlayers, implementing an in situ argon-ion-beam cleaning treatment, and measuring ion heating rates before and after treating the trap electrodes' surfaces. We find a 100-fold reduction in heating rate after treatment. The experiments described here are sensitive to low levels of electric-field noise in the MHz frequency range. Therefore, this approach could become a useful tool in surface science that complements established techniques.
囚禁离子的动力学加热是将其用作可扩展量子计算机中的量子位的主要障碍。这种加热的详细物理起源尚不清楚，但实验证据表明，它是由来自陷阱电极表面的电场噪声引起的。在这项研究中，我们通过识别污染物覆盖层、实施原位氩离子束清洁处理以及在处理陷阱电极表面前后测量离子加热速率，研究了电极上吸附物的作用。我们发现处理后加热速率降低了 100 倍。这里描述的实验对 MHz 频率范围内的低水平电场噪声敏感。因此，这种方法可能成为表面科学的有用工具，补充现有的技术。
