English

Reversing Hydride Ion Formation in Quantum Information Experiments with Be$^+$

Atomic Physics 2015-01-13 v2 Atomic and Molecular Clusters Quantum Physics

Abstract

We demonstrate photodissociation of BeH+^+ ions within a Coulomb crystal of thousands of 9^9Be+^+ ions confined in a Penning trap. Because BeH+^+ ions are created via exothermic reactions between trapped, laser-cooled Be+^+(2P3/2^2\text{P}_{3/2}) and background H2_2 within the vacuum chamber, they represent a major contaminant species responsible for infidelities in large-scale trapped-ion quantum information experiments. The rotational-state-insensitive dissociation scheme described here makes use of 157 nm photons to produce Be+^+ and H as products, thereby restoring Be+^+ ions without the need for reloading. This technique facilitates longer experiment runtimes at a given background H2_2 pressure, and may be adapted for removal of MgH+^+ and AlH+^+ impurities.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1412.0634,
  title  = {Reversing Hydride Ion Formation in Quantum Information Experiments with Be$^+$},
  author = {Brian C. Sawyer and Justin G. Bohnet and Joseph W. Britton and John J. Bollinger},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1412.0634},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

6 pages, 3 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-22T07:17:22.630Z