Localized control of large ion crystals in a Penning trap using a spatial light modulator

Penning ion traps as quantum platforms have primarily utilized global control and symmetric Dicke states for quantum simulation and sensing experiments.

The introduction of local control greatly increases the power of the platform as a quantum simulator but is technically challenging due to the rapid rotation of the ion crystals.

Here we use an ultraviolet-compatible spatial light modulator (SLM) to imprint programmable AC Stark shift patterns with different azimuthal symmetries and gradients that co-rotate with the ion crystals, demonstrating localized coherent control of single plane crystals with greater than 100 ions.

Comparisons of the measured ion qubit populations with calculations from independent measurements of the applied AC Stark shift patterns show good agreement, validating the technique and providing a path, with a higher format SLM, for parallelizable, coherent individual ion addressing in Penning traps.