Paul Traps

Our research is devoted to trapped ions – very important branch of experimental physics. Our works are focused on various interactions of ions with other particles such as electrons, atoms, ions and photons, as well as macroscopic effects of interactions of ions with external fields.

The experiment is run in segmented linear Paul trap. Atomic Ca⁺ ions are produced by electron-atom collisions and captured in the trapping potential well. They are optically cooled in the Doppler scheme using set of two lasers driving two strong transitions forming lambda system (397 S®P, 866 nm D®P). Fluorescence of the ions (397 nm) enables imaging of the ions with ultrasensitive CCD camera.

The investigated interactions are manifested in changes of the properties of the trapped ion sets, which is visible as changes in the images, for example their brightness, shape, size , positions and alignment.

At sufficient low temperatures the Coulomb crystallization can be also observed.

Besides the experiment numerical simulations of the molecular dynamics of ensembles of trapped ions are performed. Our recent activities included non-linear resonance phenomena, electron impact ionisations of atoms and ions, elastic electron-ion collisions and development of trapping systems.

There is an open PhD position for the project – please contact dr Łukasz Kłosowski.