Speaker
Description
Trapped ions constitute an exceptionally well-controlled quantum system, featuring truly identical particles confined in deep potentials and manipulated with high precision. Each ion acts as a deterministic single-photon emitter, enabling the investigation of collective light–matter interactions at a fundamental level.
In previous work, we observed interference effects in both first- and second-order photon correlation functions. These measurements revealed the emergence of spin textures [1], spatially dependent photon bunching and antibunching [2], as well as signatures of superradiance, subradiance, and measurement-induced entanglement [3].
Here, I present a novel experimental platform that combines a multisegmented ion trap for highly flexible control over emitter positions with high-numerical-aperture photon detection from opposing directions, enabling efficient and scalable measurements of spatiotemporal photon correlations in ion crystals comprising 50 or more ions.
In addition, the system provides large optical access, allowing the implementation of a wide range of tailored optical potentials [4,5]. Utilizing these optical potentials as well as the flexible control over ion positions, this platform opens the door to exploring the emergence of hierarchical structures in ion crystals in a bottom-up approach, including the formation of solitons and soliton superstructures.
[1] Verde, et al. Phys. Rev. A; 112, 043719 (2025)
[2] Wolf, et al. Phys. Rev. Lett.; 124, 063603 (2020)
[3] Richter, et al. Phys. Rev. Research; 5, 013163 (2023)
[4] Schmiegelow, et al. Phys. Rev. Lett.; 116, 033002 (2016)
[5] Stopp, et al. Phys. Rev. Lett 129, 263603 (2022)
| Academic level | PhD student |
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