Coherent diabatic ion transport and separation in a multizone trap array

Abstract

We investigate the dynamics of single and multiple ions during transport between and separation into spatially distinct locations in a multizone linear Paul trap. A single 9Be+ ion in a ~2 MHz harmonic well was transported 370 μm in 8 μs, corresponding to 16 periods of oscillation, with a gain of 0.1 motional quanta. Similar results were achieved for the transport of two ions. We also separated chains of up to 9 ions from one potential well to two distinct potential wells. With two ions this was accomplished in 55 μs, with excitations of approximately two quanta for each ion. Fast transport and separation can significantly reduce the time overhead in certain architectures for scalable quantum information processing with trapped ions.