Capture of a single barium ion

The TRIµP group has achieved capturing a single barium ion in a Paul trap. The images show Coulomb crystals formed by a decreasing number of laser-cooled ions as detected with an EMCCD camera. This forms an important step towards the planned experiments on single radium ions to measure atomic parity violation and build an ultra-stable optical clock.

View a bigger version of the image: rug.nl/kvi/research/trimp/images/5to1ion_poster.png