A Single-Ion Trap with Minimized Ion-Environment Interactions

Abstract

We present a new single-ion endcap trap for high precision spectroscopy that has been designed to minimize ion-environment interactions. We describe the design in detail and then characterize the working trap using a single trapped 171 Yb ion. Excess micromotion has been eliminated to the resolution of the detection method and the trap exhibits an anomalous phonon heating rate of d<n> /dt = 24 +30/-24 per second. The thermal properties of the trap structure have also been measured with an effective temperature rise at the ion's position of 0.14 +/- 0.14 K. The small perturbations to the ion caused by this trap make it suitable to be used for an optical frequency standard with fractional uncertainties below the 10^-18 level.