The optical setup for trapping, cooling, and manipulating a single species of ion is complex and requires extensive traditional optical table space. To make a portable, scalable system, we have partnered with AOSense to condense the required optics into an optimized rack mount system. Immediately, this provides an advantage for current ion trap setups where it is difficult to manage more than one complete trap setup on a single full-size optical table. This spatial advantage is critical to reduce optical noise that affects the quality of qubit operations.
In addition to condensing the laser setup (see Duke condensed design below, top), we seek to minimize the footprint of the ion trap vacuum system and associated optics. Duke has partnered with ColdQuanta for their expertise in developing miniature ultra-high vacuum systems. A packaged microfabricated ion trap (see Duke packaged trap below, bottom) will reside inside a miniature, constantly-pumped chamber, and ion fluorescence will be collected with a miniature high numerical aperture lens.
