Numerical Investigation of the Dynamics and Stability of Electrons in a Paul trap

Trapped electrons holds great promise as platform for an ideal qubit due to their light mass and two-level spin system, that can be manipulated and read using microwave technology. Prior experiments have established trapping electrons in a Paul trap at room temperature for up to 1 second [1]. However, to fully exploit trapped electrons for quantum computing, they must be cooled to a temperature that enables the formation of stable Coulomb crystals within the Paul trap. Here, we present the results of our recent numerical simulations exploring the dynamic stability of trapped electrons in the trap, predicting that a minimum temperature of 400 milliKelvin is required to form such stable Coulomb crystals.

[1] Matthiesen, Clemens, Qian Yu, Jinen Guo, Alberto M. Alonso, and Hartmut Häffner. “Trapping electrons in a room-temperature microwave Paul trap.”Physical Review X 11, no. 1 (2021): 011019.