A compact room temperature trapped ion system

A trapped ion system is a leading platform for a practical quantum computer. The current gate fidelity is dominated by systematic errors in the control systems delivering the laser beams that drive the gates. The main sources of these errors - mechanical instability and temperature fluctuation - are most effectively addressed by designing compact and robust optical systems. In this work, we present a collaborative work between Duke University and ColdQuanta, where a compact ultra-high vacuum (UHV) chamber operating at room temperature was developed for a trapped ion system. The internal volume of the UHV chamber is only a few cubic centimeters and its vacuum is maintained by a miniaturized ion pump. We demonstrate chain loading of Ytterbium (Yb) ions into a surface trap by ablating a metallic Yb target with a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser. We characterized the vacuum level of this small package by monitoring the hopping rate of an ion in a double well potential, driven by the collision events with background molecules. We also monitored the rate of collision events that cause reordering of the ions in a 6-ion chain containing two isotopes of Yb, one of which appears dark when it is monitored.