Monthly Archives: December 2017

Ions stored in a radio-frequency Paul trap such as ours can be perturbed by stray electric fields that result from patches of charge on the trap electrodes.  Making the trap function at its best thus requires these fields be measured … Continue reading →

Ashay Patel ’18 has recently finished building a TTL-controlled RF switch based around components from MiniCircuits.  By driving a trap electrode with short pulses of RF (known among ion trappers as a `DC tickle’) we can excite the motional modes … Continue reading →