High quality, individual optical manipulation of ions in a trapped-ion quantum simulator*

S.Motlakunta, C.Y. Shih, N.Kotibhaskar, A.Vogliano, J.Zhu, D. Mclaren, R.Hablützel, R.Islam

Institute for Quantum Computing and Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Waterloo, Canada

Trapped ions are an ideal platform for simulating complex quantum systems. Precise coherent and incoherent control of individual ion-qubits open new possibilities for quantum simulations. While recent experiments gained programmable coherent controls over individual qubits, incoherent operations, such as targeted measurement or spin-reset without decohering other spins, are harder. Resonant beams are needed for such controls, requiring precise optical engineering with low crosstalk. A fundamental limitation is decoherence of neighboring ions from emitted photons of target ions. Here, we experimentally and numerically investigate limits of individual spin reset in our quantum simulator. Our holographic optical scheme [1] with in situ aberration characterization using the trapped ions allows us to reach extremely low intensity crosstalk (~1E-4) while performing programmable individual spin reset during simulation.