Localized qubit addressing in a 2D ion crystal in a Penning trap using a deformable mirror

Trapped-ion crystals confined in Penning traps are well-controlled quantum systems that have been utilized to perform groundbreaking quantum simulation and sensing experiments. Recent research has focused on using spatial light modulators or advanced beam steering techniques to develop single-site qubit addressing protocols, which are difficult to achieve because of the rapid rotation of the crystal around the trap axis. Here we present the successful implementation of a deformable mirror to perform localized qubit addressing by generating programmable AC Stark shift patterns in the rotating frame of a 2D planar crystal of ~100 beryllium ions. We demonstrate high fidelity application of patterns consisting of Zernike polynomials as well as azimuthally symmetric radial gradients and rings. The immediate applications of this tool include the ability to initialize ion crystals with novel spin textures, thereby expanding the range of quantum systems available for simulation, as well as new thermometry techniques for measuring in-plane crystal mode temperatures. Furthermore, this progress demonstrates the feasibility of ultimately achieving single-site qubit addressing of ions in a Penning trap by simply utilizing a deformable mirror with higher actuator density.