Abstract

Trapped ion quantum logic gates following the model of Cirac and Zoller¹ have been constructed by the NIST² and Innsbrueck³ groups using ⁹Be⁺ and ⁴⁰Ca⁺ ions respectively. We are operating a new quantum logic gate using the ^l37Ba⁺ ion confined in a microscopic trap of 80 microns radius. Raman cooling to the ground state, with N < 1, is shown by the asymmetric sidebands shown in Fig. 1. We have measured the decoherence time of a such a cooled phonon mode to be greater than 1 millisecond, which indicates that the anomalously fast decay⁴ seen by the NIST group is not dominant here.

© 2001 Optical Society of America