Abstract
We report on a deterministic single ion source with high repetition rate and high fidelity. The source employs a magneto-optical trap, where ultracold rubidium atoms are photoionized. The electrons herald the creation of a corresponding ion, whose timing information is used to manipulate its trajectory in flight. We demonstrate an ion rate of up to and achieve a fidelity for single ion operation of 98%. The technique can be used for all atomic species, which can be laser-cooled, and opens up new applications in ion microscopy, ion implantation and surface spectroscopy.
Highlights
The preparation, manipulation and detection of single particles is one of the major thrusts in physics technology development
The field of applications for ions range from fundamental studies [4] and quantum optical experiments [5] to technical routines in materials science like nanostructuring [6], doping [7, 8, 9], microscopy [10, 11] and surface spectroscopy [12]
While many experiments so far employed atomic species commonly used in cold gas experiments such as Rubidium, Lithium or Chromium, this method is, in principle, applicable to every element with an electronic transition suitable for laser cooling
Summary
The preparation, manipulation and detection of single particles is one of the major thrusts in physics technology development. Field ionization at a nanotip has enabled a Helium focused ion beam (FIB), which features to date the best spatial resolution of about 0.25 nm [21]. In these cases, the ions have a broad kinetic energy distributions of a few electronvolts. We extend the concept of a magneto-optical trap ion source (MOTIS) [17] to feature single ion and deterministic operation, where the number of generated ions is known with almost unit fidelity, while at the same time their starting times are measured with very high accuracy. Such a heralded single ion source allows for the delivery of a large number of ions with sub-Poissonian statistics and for the generation of a deterministic string of ions with low time jitter
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