Light-atom interaction at the 10,000 quanta level by bang-bang manipulation of motional states

J. Alonso, F. M. Leupold, Z. U. Solèr, M. Marinelli, J. P. Home

Institute for Quantum Electronics, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

I will present results on the generation and characterization of high-purity non-classical harmonic-oscillator states, with principal quantum numbers spanning up to 10,000, which we have recently used to study light-matter interaction far from the Lamb-Dicke regime. The integration of in-vacuum cryogenic digital electronics with our micro-fabricated surface-electrode ion trap enables sub-nano-second control over the confining electric fields above the chip. This allows for quasi-instantaneous switching between different trapping-potential configurations, with which we can effectively implement bang-bang protocols [1]. Furthermore, this setup has the potential of boosting ion-transport operations, generating highly-squeezed states, or implementing shortcuts to adiabaticity to minimize unwanted effects caused by noise and decoherence. It also expands the toolbox of manipulations in quantum information experiments with trapped ions.

[1] J. Alonso et al., New J. Phys. 15, 023001 (2013)