Building and characterizing a stylus ion-trap system

Cold trapped ions can be excellent sensors for ultra-precision detection of physical quantities, which strongly depends on the measurement situation at hand. The stylus ion trap, formed by two concentric cylinders over a ground plane, holds the promise of relatively simple structure and larger solid angle for optical access and fluorescence collection in comparison with the conventional ion traps. Here we report our fabrication and characterization of the first stylus ion trap constructed in China, aiming for studying quantum optics and sensing weak electric fields in the future. We have observed the stable confinement of the ion in the trapping potential for more than two hours and measured the heating rate of the trap to be dε/dt = 7.10 ± 0.13 meV/s by the Doppler recooling method. Our work starts a way to building practical quantum sensors with high efficiency of optical collection and with ultimate goal for contributing to future quantum information technology.