Scaling and Suppression of Heating in an Adjustable Ion Trap

One of the major hurdles in the realization of large entangled states among trapped ions is anomalous heating of trapped ion motion [1].~ We implement a novel rf ion trap featuring moveable electrodes that has enabled a controlled investigation of this motional decoherence.~ First, we characterize heating as a function of electrode proximity, related to the geometry of noisy potentials on the electrode surface. Second, we cool the electrodes via contact with a liquid nitrogen reservoir and observe that the decoherence rate is suppressed by an order of magnitude.~ The insight gained through these experiments may have relevance to scaling the ion trap quantum information processor. 1.~ Q. A. Turchette, et. al., Phys. Rev. A 61, 063418 (2000).