Robust optical engineering and atomic source development for a Barium ion-based quantum simulator.

Interest in trapped-ion physics has grown significantly over the last two decades due to exceptional experimental success, proving it to be one of the leading hardware candidates for quantum information processing and simulation. Harnessing the full potential of this platform requires building increasingly complex machines capable of driving many different atomic transitions and addressing long chains of ions. With this increase in optical complexity, comes an increase in potential points of failure throughout the necessary optical systems required to drive these transitions. To this end, we have designed and built optical systems for fiber coupling, monitoring, and focusing light at the ions that are robust against drifts due to thermal fluctuations and optomechanical failure. The optical components in these systems are mounted directly on thick, custom machined aluminum plates and include dowel pins for precision alignment. We have designed a rack-mountable laser pegboard system with vertically mounted components to reduce footprint, which serves to drive four crucial transitions in our ion trapping experiment. Light captured in our rack system is sent through fiber to our optical table, where we have engineered optics for addressing our ions, capturing fluorescence, and monitoring the optical health of the experiment remotely. Throughout these beam paths, there are many cameras, photodiodes, and motorized optomechanical devices, which aid in pinpointing points of failure in this complex system. In addition to optical work, we touch on the atomic source development of our qubit of choice, Barium-133. This isotope is radioactive and can only be used in microgram quantities. We test different heat treating methods and laser ablation parameters in order to maximize the amount of Barium-133 we will eventually trap from our sample.