Sympathetic EIT laser cooling of motional modes in an ion chain

Abstract

We use electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) laser cooling to cool motional modes of a linear ion chain. As a demonstration, we apply EIT cooling on $^{24}Mg^+$ ions to cool the axial modes of a $^9Be^+$ - $^{24}Mg^+$ ion pair and a $^9Be^+$ - $^{24}Mg^+$ - $^{24}Mg^+$ - $^9Be^+$ ion chain, thereby sympathetically cooling the $^{9}$Be$^{+}$ ions. Compared to previous implementations of conventional Raman sideband cooling, we achieve approximately an order-of-magnitude reduction in the duration required to cool the modes to near the ground state and significant reduction in required laser intensity.