Curator's Take
AI Commentary
This article demonstrates a macroscopic rf trap that can host more than 100 ions in both long one‑dimensional strings and tunable two‑dimensional lattices, a capability that has been difficult to achieve with conventional surface‑electrode designs. By laser‑machining fused‑silica wafers into ten independently biased electrodes, the authors provide unprecedented flexibility for shaping axial potentials, rotating principal axes and compensating micromotion—features that directly support larger‑scale quantum simulations and precision sensing experiments. Because all design files are released openly, the work offers a ready‑to‑build platform that could accelerate community efforts to scale ion‑based processors beyond current size limits.
— Mark Eatherly
Summary
Large ion crystals in diverse geometries are a key resource for quantum simulation experiments. In this work, we introduce a macroscopic rf trap that supports a wide variety of one-dimensional ion configurations as well as lateral two-dimensional crystals with more than 100 ions. Our design is based on precision-machined fused silica wafers that are stacked to form the trap structure. Ten independently biased electrodes provide flexible control over the axial potential, enabling long one-dimensional crystals, isospaced ion strings, split-well chains, and two-dimensional arrays with tunable aspect ratios. We present the design and fabrication process for this trap and demonstrate the ability to tune the radial secular frequencies, detect and compensate micromotion, rotate the principal axes, and characterize trapped ion heating rates. All trap design and documentation files are freely available alongside this work, to facilitate adoption and further development within the ion trap community.