The advent of microfabricated ion traps for the quantum information community has allowed research groups to build traps that incorporate an unprecedented number of trapping zones. However, as device complexity has grown, the number of digital-to-analog converter (DAC) channels needed to control these devices has grown as well, with some of the largest trap assemblies now requiring nearly one hundred DAC channels. Providing electrical connections for these channels into a vacuum chamber can be bulky and difficult to scale beyond the current numbers of trap electrodes. This paper reports on the development and testing of an in-vacuum DAC system that uses only 9 vacuum feedthrough connections to control a 78-electrode microfabricated ion trap. The system is characterized by trapping single and multiple 40Ca+ ions. The measured axial mode stability, ion heating rates, and transport fidelities for a trapped ion are comparable to systems with external (air-side) commercial DACs.

We report the design, fabrication and characterization of a microfabricated surface-electrode ion trap that supports controlled transport through the two-dimensional intersection of linear trapping zones arranged in a 90° cross. The trap is fabricated with very large scalable integration techniques which are compatible with scaling to a large quantum information processor. The shape of the radio-frequency electrodes is optimized with a genetic algorithm to reduce axial pseudopotential barriers and minimize ion heating during transport. Seventy-eight independent dc control electrodes enable fine control of the trapping potentials. We demonstrate reliable ion transport between junction legs and determine the rate of ion loss due to transport. Doppler-cooled ions survive more than 105 round-trip transits between junction legs without loss and more than 65 consecutive round trips without laser cooling.

In this paper, we tailor the evanescent field coupling between two metal layers with subwavelength slit arrays and created a half-wave plate that imparts a half-wave phase delay to one component of linear polarization. The polarization of linearly polarized light at 1.55 μm wavelength can be rotated by up to 90 degrees, with polarization extinction ratio exceeding 22 dB. One advantage of this device over conventional polarization rotators is that the wavelength of operation can be chosen by fabricating subwavelength slit arrays with different parameters. Moreover, future devices can be designed to be mechanically tunable by suspending one of the metal plates. Nanomechanical motion between the two metal layers changes the evanescent field coupling between them, allowing real time control of the polarization of the transmitted light.

We present a microfabricated surface-electrode ion trap with a pair of integrated waveguides that generate a standing microwave field resonant with the 171Yb+ hyperfine qubit. The waveguides are engineered to position the wave antinode near the center of the trap, resulting in maximum field amplitude and uniformity along the trap axis. By calibrating the relative amplitudes and phases of the waveguide currents, we can control the polarization of the microwave field to reduce off-resonant coupling to undesired Zeeman sublevels. We demonstrate single-qubit π-rotations as fast as 1 μs with less than 6% variation in Rabi frequency over an 800 μm microwave interaction region. Fully compensating pulse sequences further improve the uniformity of X-gates across this interaction region.

Recent advances in quantum information processing with trapped ions have demonstrated the need for new ion trap architectures capable of holding and manipulating chains of many (>10) ions. Here we present the design and detailed characterization of a new linear trap, microfabricated with scalable complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) techniques, that is well-suited to this challenge. Forty-four individually controlled dc electrodes provide the many degrees of freedom required to construct anharmonic potential wells, shuttle ions, merge and split ion chains, precisely tune secular mode frequencies, and adjust the orientation of trap axes. Microfabricated capacitors on dc electrodes suppress radio-frequency pickup and excess micromotion, while a top-level ground layer simplifies modeling of electric fields and protects trap structures underneath. A localized aperture in the substrate provides access to the trapping region from an oven below, permitting deterministic loading of particular isotopic/elemental sequences via species-selective photoionization. The shapes of the aperture and radio-frequency electrodes are optimized to minimize perturbation of the trapping pseudopotential. Laboratory experiments verify simulated potentials and characterize trapping lifetimes, stray electric fields, and ion heating rates, while measurement and cancellation of spatially-varying stray electric fields permits the formation of nearly-equally spaced ion chains.

In ion trap quantum information processing, efficient fluorescence collection is critical for fast, high-fidelity qubit detection and ion-photon entanglement. The expected size of future many-ion processors require scalable light collection systems. We report on the development and testing of a microfabricated surface-electrode ion trap with an integrated high numerical aperture (NA) micromirror for fluorescence collection. When coupled to a low NA lens, the optical system is inherently scalable to large arrays of mirrors in a single device. We demonstrate stable trapping and transport of 40Ca+ ions over a 0.63 NA micromirror and observe a factor of 1.9 enhancement in photon collection compared to the planar region of the trap.

We describe a novel monolithic ion trap that combines the flexibility and scalability of silicon microfabrication technologies with the superior trapping characteristics of traditional four-rod Paul traps. The performace of the proposed microfabricated trap approaches that of the macroscopic structures. The fabrication process creates an angled through-chip slot which allows backside ion loading and through-laser access while avoiding surface light scattering and dielectric charging. The trap geometry and dimensions are optimized for confining long ion chains with equal ion spacing [G.-D. Lin, et al., Europhys. Lett. 86, 60004 (2009)]. Control potentials have been derived to produce linear, equally spaced ion chains of up to 50 ions spaced at 10 um. With the deep trapping depths achievable in this design, we expect that these chains will be sufficiently long-lived to be used in quantum simulations of magnetic systems [E.E. Edwards, et al., Phys. Rev. B 82, 060412(R) (2010)]. The trap is currently being fabricated at Georgia Tech using VLSI techniques.

We demonstrate a half wave plate whose principle of operation is based on the strong evanescent field coupling between two metal layers with arrays of subwavelength slits. The device is divided into two kinds of pixels in which the slits are oriented in orthogonal directions. By tuning the phase delay of the transmitted light through the lateral displacement between the top and bottom layers, the polarization of linearly polarized light at 1.55 μm can be rotated by up to 90°. The polarization extinction ratio of the transmitted light exceeds 22 dB.

We measure the Casimir force gradient between silicon surfaces with nanoscale, rectangular corrugations and a gold sphere attached to a micromechanical torsional oscillator. By comparing the force gradients on the corrugated surfaces to that on a smooth, flat surface of the same material, we demonstrate that the Casimir force deviates from the value expected from the pairwise additive approximation and the proximity force approximation. The observed deviation qualitatively agrees with calculations that take into account the interplay between finite conductivity and geometry effects. However, the agreement is not exact, possibly due to uncertainties in the optical properties of the silicon substrate.

We measure the transmission of IR radiation through double-layer metal films with periodic arrays of subwavelength holes. When the two metal films are placed in sufficiently close proximity, two types of transmission resonances emerge. For the surface plasmon mode, the electromagnetic field is concentrated on the outer surface of the entire metallic layer stack. In contrast, for the guided mode, the field is confined to the gap between the two metal layers. Our measurements indicate that, as the two layers are laterally shifted from perfect alignment, the peak transmission frequency of the guided mode decreases significantly, while that of the surface plasmon mode remains largely unchanged, in agreement with numerical calculations.

High-efficiency collection of photons emitted by a point source over a wide field of view (FoV) is crucial for many applications. Multiscale optics offer improved light collection by utilizing small optical components placed close to the optical source, while maintaining a wide FoV provided by conventional imaging optics. In this work, we demonstrate collection efficiency of 26% of photons emitted by a pointlike source using a micromirror fabricated in silicon with no significant decrease in collection efficiency over a 10 mm object space.

We measure the Casimir force between a gold sphere and a silicon plate with nanoscale, rectangular corrugations with a depth comparable to the separation between the surfaces. In the proximity force approximation (PFA), both the top and bottom surfaces of the corrugations contribute to the force, leading to a distance dependence that is distinct from a flat surface. The measured Casimir force is found to deviate from the PFA by up to 10%, in good agreement with calculations based on scattering theory that includes both geometry effects and the optical properties of the material.

Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter Facebook Reddit LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Reprints and Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation C. D. W. Jones, F. Pardo, C.-S. Pai, J. E. Bower, J. F. Miner, F. P. Klemens, R. A. Cirelli, E. J. Ferry, J. A. Taylor, M. R. Baker, B. S. Dennis, W. M. Mansfield, A. Kornblit, R. C. Keller, J. V. Gates, A. P. Ramirez; 3ω thermal conductivity measurements of thin film dielectrics on silicon for use in cantilever-based IR imaging. Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology B: Microelectronics and Nanometer Structures Processing, Measurement, and Phenomena 1 May 2009; 27 (3): 1207–1210. https://doi.org/10.1116/1.3137962 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAVS: Science & Technology of Materials Interfaces and ProcessingJournal of Vacuum Science & Technology B Search Advanced Search |Citation Search

BACKGROUND: Multiphase hydrogenation plays a critical role in the pharmaceutical industry. A significant portion of the reaction steps in a typical fine chemical synthesis are catalytic hydrogenations, generally limited by resistances to mass and heat transport. To this end, the small-scale and large surface-to-volume ratios of microreactor technology would greatly benefit chemical processing in the pharmaceutical and other industries. A silicon microreactor has been developed to investigate mass transfer in a catalytic hydrogenation reaction. The reactor design is such that solid catalyst is suspended in the reaction channel by an arrangement of catalyst traps. The design supports the use of commercial catalyst and allows control of pressure drop across the bed by engineering the packing density.RESULTS: This paper discusses the design and operation of the reactor in the context of the liquid-phase hydrogenation of o-nitroanisole to o-anisidine. A two-phase 'flow map' is generated across a range of conditions depicting three flow regimes, termed gas-dominated, liquid-dominated, and transitional, all with distinctly different mass transfer behavior. Conversion is measured across the flow map and then reconciled against the mass transfer characteristics of the prevailing flow regime. The highest conversion is achieved in the transitional flow regime, where competition between phases induces the most favorable gas-liquid mass transfer.CONCLUSION: The results are used to associate a mass transfer coefficient with each flow regime to quantify differences in performance. This reactor architecture may be useful for catalyst evaluation through rapid screening, or in large numbers as an alternative to macro-scale production reactors. (C) 2008 Society of Chemical Industry