Our longer term work in the lab will involve studying heat flow in mixed-species chains of two isotopes of calcium ions. To build these chains with a particular isotopic sequence, we will load one ion into the trap at a time; by selecting a particular photoionization laser frequency we can select one isotope or the other. The loaded ion is then shuttled across the trap to a `storage’ well, distant from the trap’s loading slot. We’ve recently developed new waveforms (sets of voltages we apply sequentially to the trap electrodes) that allow us to sequentially merge ions into a composite chain. Here’s a movie showing the loading of a six-ion chain put together by Ashay Patel ’18:
Movie of merging and splitting chains. Click to view.
