{"id":23441,"date":"2025-04-07T22:10:30","date_gmt":"2025-04-07T22:10:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/?p=23441"},"modified":"2025-08-29T04:40:52","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T04:40:52","slug":"measuring-micromotion-of-trapped-ions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/case-studies\/measuring-micromotion-of-trapped-ions\/","title":{"rendered":"Measuring micromotion of trapped ions","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wpb-content-wrapper\"><p>[vc_row][vc_column]\n    <div data-component='call_to_action' class='vc_row-fluid cta w-full mx-auto cta-outline'>\n      <div class='flex w-full gap-4 flex-col items-center'>\n      \n        <div class='max-w-prose wpb_column vc_column_container vc_col-sm-12'>\n          <div class='vc_column-inner'>\n            \n            <p>This article details how Moku:Pro is used to precisely measure and minimize ion oscillations (micromotion) in advanced atomic clocks, using the Time &amp; Frequency Analyzer instrument.<\/p>\n\n          <\/div>\n        <\/div>\n        <div class=' flex flex-row gap-4 xs:flex-col'>\n          <a class=\"button relative gap-2 items-center blue filled medium  \" href=\"https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/product\/moku-pro\/\" title=\"Configure Moku:Pro\" target=\"\"><span class=\"flex-1\">Configure Moku:Pro<\/span><\/a>\n  <a class=\"button relative gap-2 items-center blue filled medium  \" href=\"https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/products\/integrated-instruments\/time-frequency-analyzer\/\" title=\"Explore the Time &amp; Frequency Analyzer\" target=\"\"><span class=\"flex-1\">Explore the Time &amp; Frequency Analyzer<\/span><\/a>\n  \n  \n        <\/div>\n      <\/div>\n    <\/div>[vc_column_text]<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you are familiar with an <a href=\"https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/webinars\/measuring-time-quantifying-modern-clocks-and-oscillators\/\">atomic clock<\/a>, it\u2019s probably due to the fact that a global array of more than 80 such clocks make up the basis for coordinated universal time (UTC). The concept of an atomic clock is now synonymous with \u201cprecision,\u201d and the very best atomic clocks reach fractional uncertainties at the 19th decimal place.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In order to achieve this precision, one has to characterize and control a variety of external perturbations, including electric and magnetic field noise, surrounding black body radiation, and any coupling which causes the &#8220;clock&#8221; atoms to gain motional energy. The ability to anticipate and correct for these types of frequency-shift-inducing effects is critical to maintaining the accuracy and stability of atomic clocks.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colostate.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Colorado State University<\/a>, the group of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.physics.colostate.edu\/christian-sanner\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Christian Sanner<\/a> [1] performs research on trapped-ion based optical atomic clocks. Part of their work involves ensuring that all external perturbations are kept to a minimum. For this they use <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/products\/hardware-platforms\/mokupro\/\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Moku:Pro<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, an FPGA-based device that delivers a reconfigurable suite of test and measurement instruments. Leveraging the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/products\/integrated-instruments\/time-frequency-analyzer\/\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Time &amp; Frequency Analyzer<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, they are able to check the residual motion of trapped ions, and apply the appropriate corrective measures to minimize it.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>The challenge<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To trap ions, one typically starts with neutral atoms and removes an electron with laser energy. Once ionized, the atoms feel strong electric forces due to the electric potential created by the ion trap electrodes. A configuration of time-varying AC and DC potentials (\u201cPaul trap\u201d with typical drive frequencies in the RF range of tens of MHz) makes it possible to trap ions in free space. The ions are then brought to sub-mK temperatures via a method called <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Doppler_cooling\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Doppler cooling<\/a>. In this process, the ions are exposed to a velocity-dependent light force, leading to a net energy loss. Figure 1 shows an ion trap apparatus surrounded by optics for Doppler cooling and fluorescence detection.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-23445 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/ion-trap-setup_cs-1-1024x488.jpg\" alt=\"ion trap apparatus\" width=\"900\" height=\"429\" srcset=\"https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/ion-trap-setup_cs-1-1024x488.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/ion-trap-setup_cs-1-300x143.jpg 300w, https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/ion-trap-setup_cs-1-768x366.jpg 768w, https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/ion-trap-setup_cs-1-1536x732.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/ion-trap-setup_cs-1-2048x975.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/ion-trap-setup_cs-1-600x286.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Figure 1: An ion trap apparatus. Photograph courtesy of Christian Sanner, Colorado State University.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ideally, the trap&#8217;s time-varying electric fields will confine the ion at a point where the AC and DC fields vanish. In practice, however, any stray electric field present nearby can displace the ion from the ideal trap center, in which case the applied RF causes the ion to oscillate within the trap \u2014 also known as micromotion. This has adverse effects on the performance of the system; for an optical ion clock it leads to unwanted Stark shifts and time dilation shifts of the transition frequency.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Since it is impossible to completely remove stray electric fields, researchers typically apply additional compensation fields to offset the perturbations introduced by the stray fields. However, the issue remains of how to detect if an ion is undergoing micromotion in the first place. That\u2019s where Christian Sanner and his team introduced the Moku <a href=\"https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/products\/integrated-instruments\/time-frequency-analyzer\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Time &amp; Frequency Analyzer<\/a> to precisely measure the residual amount of micromotion.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>The solution<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A wide variety of micromotion detection methods have been developed over the last 30 years. Some of them rely on the same concepts on which Doppler cooling operates. For instance, \u201cphoton correlation\u201d methods [2, 3] detect trap-drive-synchronous ion fluorescence modulation. In the case of improperly compensated stray fields, such a modulation arises in the light scattered from an ion during Doppler cooling due to the micromotion-induced Doppler shift and the corresponding photon scattering rate modulation. In other words, scattering of the red-detuned laser cooling light will increase if the ion is approaching the laser beam during a micromotion half-cycle and will decrease when the atom is moving away from the light source during the other half-cycle.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A convenient configuration for implementing this cross-correlation measurement, used by the CSU team, can be seen in Figure 2. The Moku Time &amp; Frequency Analyzer essentially performs lock-in detection of discretized photon scattering events by repeatedly measuring the time interval between the detection of a scattered photon and the next zero-crossing of the trap drive RF signal.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-23442 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-02-at-9.35.23\u202fAM-1024x539.png\" alt=\"Schematic of a cross-correlation measurement setup with the Moku Time &amp; Frequency Analyzer instrument\" width=\"900\" height=\"474\" srcset=\"https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-02-at-9.35.23\u202fAM-1024x539.png 1024w, https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-02-at-9.35.23\u202fAM-300x158.png 300w, https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-02-at-9.35.23\u202fAM-768x404.png 768w, https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-02-at-9.35.23\u202fAM-600x316.png 600w, https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-02-at-9.35.23\u202fAM.png 1293w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Figure 2: Schematic of the cross-correlation measurement setup with the Moku Time &amp; Frequency Analyzer instrument. Photons scattered on the ion are collected on a photomultiplier tube (PMT), which sends for each detected photon a TTL pulse to the Moku instrument.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>The result<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By building up a histogram of the measured time intervals one can reveal trap-drive-synchronous ion fluorescence modulation and therefore quantify the micromotion amplitude. Two example histograms are shown in Figure 3. If the micromotion in the trap is small, then the distribution of photon events within a trap drive period will be relatively flat (Figure 3a). If the system has large micromotion, then the photon detection events are non-uniformly distributed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The histograms generated by the <a href=\"https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/products\/integrated-instruments\/time-frequency-analyzer\/\">Time &amp; Frequency Analyzer<\/a> allowed the team to detect the micromotion in the trap in real time. With this information, they apply compensation fields to cancel out the deleterious effects of stray electric fields and view the results. When the micromotion reached an acceptable level, they could then proceed to the next stage of their optical ion clock experiments.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-23443 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-01-23-at-9.06.30\u202fAM-1024x441.png\" alt=\"Moku Time &amp; Frequency Analyzer interface showcasing a photon detection histogram\" width=\"900\" height=\"388\" srcset=\"https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-01-23-at-9.06.30\u202fAM-1024x441.png 1024w, https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-01-23-at-9.06.30\u202fAM-300x129.png 300w, https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-01-23-at-9.06.30\u202fAM-768x331.png 768w, https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-01-23-at-9.06.30\u202fAM-1536x661.png 1536w, https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-01-23-at-9.06.30\u202fAM-600x258.png 600w, https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-01-23-at-9.06.30\u202fAM.png 1682w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Figure 3: Moku Time &amp; Frequency Analyzer results. a) Photon detection histogram for an ion trap with small micromotion (good compensation). b) Detection histogram for an ion trap with larger micromotion, showing pronounced trap-drive-synchronous fluorescence modulation.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the future, the Sanner Lab has plans to incorporate other instruments, such as the Neural Network, into their research. Alongside the Time &amp; Frequency Analyzer, the Moku <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/neural-network\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Neural Network<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> could help further improve the efficiency of laser cooling and optical clock interrogation sequences.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>References<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[1] Colorado State University Department of Physics. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.physics.colostate.edu\/christian-sanner\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">https:\/\/www.physics.colostate.edu\/christian-sanner\/<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[2] [1]D. J. Berkeland, J. D. Miller, J. C. Bergquist, W. M. Itano, and D. J. Wineland, \u201cMinimization of ion micromotion in a Paul trap,\u201d <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Journal of Applied Physics<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, vol. 83, no. 10, pp. 5025\u20135033, May 1998, doi: <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1063\/1.367318\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1063\/1.367318<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[3] J. Keller, H. L. Partner, T. Burgermeister, and T. E. Mehlst\u00e4ubler, \u201cPrecise determination of micromotion for trapped-ion optical clocks,\u201d <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Journal of Applied Physics<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, vol. 118, no. 10, Sep. 2015, doi: <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1063\/1.4930037\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1063\/1.4930037<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row background=&#8221;gradient&#8221; layout=&#8221;vertical&#8221; options=&#8221;button&#8221; media_position=&#8221;right&#8221; media_type=&#8221;&#8221; ja_toggle_src=&#8221;&#8221; zh_toggle_src=&#8221;&#8221; kr_toggle_src=&#8221;&#8221; image=&#8221;&#8221; image_size=&#8221;full&#8221; aspect_ratio=&#8221;auto&#8221; max_width=&#8221;&#8221; center=&#8221;&#8221; href=&#8221;url:https%3A%2F%2Fknowledge.liquidinstruments.com%2F|title:Knowledge%20Base|target:_blank&#8221; style=&#8221;filled&#8221; size=&#8221;medium&#8221; href_secondary_btn=&#8221;&#8221; style-secondary=&#8221;filled&#8221; size-secondary=&#8221;medium&#8221; en_src=&#8221;&#8221; ja_src=&#8221;&#8221; zh_src=&#8221;&#8221; kr_src=&#8221;&#8221;][vc_column][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false,"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"html"}]},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]If you are familiar with an atomic clock, it\u2019s probably due to the fact that a global array of more than 80 such clocks make up the basis for coordinated universal time (UTC). The concept of an atomic clock is now synonymous with \u201cprecision,\u201d and the very best atomic clocks reach fractional uncertainties at the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false,"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"html"}]},"author":49,"featured_media":23442,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[113],"tags":[279,309],"class_list":["post-23441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-case-studies","tag-photon-counting","tag-quantumoptics","site-category-mokupro","site-category-time-frequency-analyzer"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.0 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Measuring the Micromotion of Trapped Ions<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learn how optical atomic clock researchers at Colorado State are using the Moku Time &amp; Frequency Analyzer to detect micromotion in ion traps\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/case-studies\/measuring-micromotion-of-trapped-ions\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Measuring micromotion of trapped ions\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Learn how optical atomic clock researchers at Colorado State are using the Moku Time &amp; Frequency Analyzer to detect micromotion in ion traps\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/liquidinstruments.com\/case-studies\/measuring-micromotion-of-trapped-ions\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Liquid Instruments\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" 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