Closed-cycle gas flow cryogenic ion trap apparatus

Trapped atomic ions are a leading platform for quantum information processing. Scaling to processors with 1000’s of ions is expected to require entanglement distribution using ion-photon interfaces mediated by small mode volume photonic structures. We report on the design and testing of a closed-cycle gas flow cryogenic apparatus for ion trapping that will enable rapid prototyping on integration of traps with novel photonic structures. The cryostat is designed to minimize vibration, mechanical drift, and temperature instability[1, 2, 3]. With an eye toward pursuing large qubit registers required for long-distance quantum networking, we note that cryogenic traps enable long ion chains[2], with reduced background gas collisions and motional heating. Our cryostat is rigidly mounted in an 11 inch bore of an optics table. It is mechanically decoupled from a Gifford-McMahon cryo-cooler that lies several meters away in an acoustic isolation box. Eight optical ports 4 inches above the table provide 360^○ optical access. All UHV vacuum components, electrical penetrations and cryogenic ports lie under the optics table. We present measurements of the vibration, cooling power, and temperature stability of the apparatus.

References

[1] P Micke. doi: 10.1063/1.5088593.

[2] G Pagano. doi: 10.1088/2058-9565/aae0fe. 

[3] Grahame Vittorini. doi: 10.1063/1.4802948.