Speeding up Photonic Interconnects and State Detection in Trapped Ions using Pulsed Lasers

Remote entanglement generation with photonic interconnects is limited in part by the photon generation rate. In trapped ion photonic interconnects, the ions are usually optically pumped to some specific initial state before photon generation, taking hundreds of nanoseconds or more. We present a method of state preparation and photon generation which limits the amount of slow optical pumping by controlling the target ground state population with a pulsed laser. Based on simulations, our method can increase the photon attempt rate by at least a factor of four. Additionally, we show how the same pulsed laser system can be used for fast and accurate background-free state detection.