Abstract

Ion trapping and laser cooling have now established themselves as important techniques in spectroscopy, quantum optics, and frequency standards.¹ A wide variety of information can be obtained using ion trap techniques, and in many of these measurements laser cooling is a vital part of the technique. However, often only limited information is available from the experiment about the effectiveness of the laser cooling and the exact state of motion of the trapped ions. For this reason, we have performed extensive simulations of the motion of ions experiencing laser cooling in a Penning trap (the configuration in which our recent experiments have been performed).² We are then able to use the results of the simulations both to interpret the experimental results we obtain and also to guide future experiments. This work follows from initial work reported in.³

© 1994 IEEE