Microwave-driven same-species sympathetic cooling for trapped ions

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 $^{43}$Ca$^+$ 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 ($\bar{n}\approx 0.16$) and benchmark an induced error on the data qubit of $1.7(4)\times 10^{-4}$ per cooling cycle.