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Instability heating of sympathetically cooled ions in a linear Paul trap

Journal Article · · Physical Review. A
; ;  [1]
  1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, Alberta, T2N 1N4 (Canada)
Sympathetic laser cooling of ions stored within a linear-geometry, radio frequency, electric-quadrupole trap has been investigated using computational and theoretical techniques. The simulation, which allows five sample ions to interact with 35 laser-cooled atomic ions, revealed an instability heating mechanism, which can prevent ions below a certain critical mass from being sympathetically cooled. This critical mass can, however, be varied by changing the trapping field parameters, thus allowing ions with a very large range of masses to be sympathetically cooled using a single ion species. A theoretical explanation of this instability heating mechanism is presented which predicts that the cooling-heating boundary in trapping parameter space is a line of constant q{sub u} (ion trap stability coefficient), a result supported by the computational results. The threshold value of q{sub u} depends on the masses of the interacting ions. A functional form of this dependence is given.
OSTI ID:
20634148
Journal Information:
Physical Review. A, Journal Name: Physical Review. A Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 67; ISSN 1050-2947; ISSN PLRAAN
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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