Microwave-driven same-species sympathetic cooling for trapped ions

2026/07/22 by M. C. Smith, E. Vandrey, A. D. Leu +5
#quant-ph

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Abstract

Sympathetic cooling of data qubits by coolant ions is an essential technique for trapped-ion quantum computing. Conventionally a second ion species is used, requiring additional lasers and complicating optical setups. We propose a scheme for sympathetic cooling using the same species and test it for ⁴³Ca⁺ ions. Pulsed sideband cooling and ion addressing are implemented via integrated microwave control, further simplifying optical requirements. We cool a two-ion gate mode close to its ground state (n≈ 0.16) and benchmark an induced error on the data qubit of 1.7(4)× 10^-4 per cooling cycle.

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