A Microfabricated Ion Trap Chip With A Sloped Loading Slot To Minimize Exposing Trapped Ions To Stray Charges

A novel microfabricated ion trap chip that can geometrically minimize exposing trapped ions to stray charges on dielectric surfaces is developed. The new design utilizes a sloped loading slot to make the dielectric layers of the loading slot sidewalls invisible to the trapped ions. The designed loading slot is realized by applying silicon anisotropic etching processes, and the ion trap chip that contains the sloped loading slot is fabricated using microelectromechanical system processes. Stray charges induced by injecting an ultraviolet laser on the surface of the fabricated ion trap chip are experimentally characterized by measuring stray electric fields at the location of the trapped ions. The measured results are compared to those of a previous ion trap chip with a vertical loading slot. The magnitude of the measured stray electric field in the axial direction is within 1.5 V m(-1) for the proposed ion trap chip, whereas it is approximately 10 V m(-1) for the previously reported ion trap chip.