Breaking the entangling gate speed limit for trapped-ion qubits using a phase-stable standing wave

Journal article

All laser-driven entangling operations for trapped-ion qubits have hitherto been performed without control of the optical phase of the light field, which precludes independent tuning of the carrier and motional coupling. By placing ⁸⁸Sr⁺ ions in a λ=674  nm standing wave, whose relative position is controlled to ≈λ/100, we suppress the carrier coupling by a factor of 18, while coherently enhancing the spin-motion coupling. We experimentally demonstrate that the off-resonant carrier coupling imposes a speed limit for conventional traveling-wave Mølmer-Sørensen gates; we use the standing wave to surpass this limit and achieve a gate duration of 15  μs, restricted by the available laser power.

Authors: Saner, S; Băzăvan, O; Minder, M; Drmota, P; Webb, DJ

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: American Physical Society
• Journal: Physical Review Letters
• Volume: 131
• Issue: 22
• Article number: 220601
• Place of publication: United States
• Publication date: 2023-12-01
• Acceptance date: 2023-10-16
• DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.131.220601
• EISSN: 1079-7114
• ISSN: 0031-9007
• Pmid: 38101375
• Language: English