Ion traps fabricated in a CMOS foundry

We demonstrate trapping in a surface-electrode ion trap fabricated in a 90-nm CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) foundry process utilizing the top metal layer of the process for the trap electrodes. The process includes doped active regions and metal interconnect layers, allowing for co-fabrication of standard CMOS circuitry as well as devices for optical control and measurement. With one of the interconnect layers defining a ground plane between the trap electrode layer and the p-type doped silicon substrate, ion loading is robust and trapping is stable. We measure a motional heating rate comparable to those seen in surface-electrode traps of similar size. This is the first demonstration of scalable quantum computing hardware, in any modality, utilizing a commercial CMOS process, and it opens the door to integration and co-fabrication of electronics and photonics for large-scale quantum processing in trapped-ion arrays.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Engineering of microfabricated ion traps and integration of advanced on-chip features

Atomic ions trapped in electromagnetic potentials have long been used for fundamental studies in quantum physics. Over the past two decades, trapped ions have been successfully used to implement technologies such as quantum computing, quantum simulation, atomic clocks, mass spectrometers and quantum sensors. Advanced fabrication techniques, taken from other established or emerging disciplines, are used to create new, reliable ion-trap devices aimed at large-scale integration and compatibility with commercial fabrication. This Technical Review covers the fundamentals of ion trapping before discussing the design of ion traps for the aforementioned applications. We overview the current microfabrication techniques and the various considerations behind the choice of materials and processes. Finally, we discuss current efforts to include advanced, on-chip features in next-generation ion traps

Relevant Length Scales in Brillouin Imaging of Biomaterials: The Interplay between Phonons Propagation and Light Focalization

Recent advances in photonics technologies pushed optical microscopy towards new horizons in materials characterization. In this framework, Brillouin microscopy emerged as an innovative method to provide images of materials with mechanical contrast without any physical contact, but exploiting the light-matter interaction. Brillouin imaging holds a great promise; to allow mechanical analysis inside soft and heterogeneous materials, addressing the pivotal role played by viscoelastic properties in the physiology and pathology of living tissues and cells. Nevertheless, extending the approach of Brillouin imaging to characterize elastic heterogeneities of micro and nanostructured samples is especially challenging, and it poses a critical question about the actual spatial resolution reachable in the mechanical characterization. We focus this critical review on the key quantities that define the spatial resolution in the Brillouin scattering process, and we highlight that not only the optical focalization of the light, but also the acoustic excitations present in the material, influence the information collected from a sample by Brillouin imaging. Referring to the body of knowledge gained in the field of material science, we review new results and recently obtained progresses in the more unexplored context of life science. In future developments, a comprehensive strategy to tackle both the acoustic and optical aspects of the measurement will be required to maximize the efficacy of the technique