Pulsed phonon lasing in trapped ions

Abstract

Optical laser pulses play important roles in various fields, and the phononlike analog, i.e., phonon laser pulses, should also be very useful. We show the possibility of pulsed phonon lasing in trapped ions based on our observation that coherent phonon pulses are generated and then transferred between transverse dimensions due to nonlinear resonance once the oscillation amplitude of the trapped ions is larger than a threshold. We study the pulsed phonon output with the multiple-scale method using the first-order nonlinear differential equations which govern time evolution of the amplitudes and phases of the interacting modes. We also discuss the feasibility of Q-switched pulsed phonon lasing and the potential application.