The fundamental qualities of trapped atomic ion qubits are promising for long-term systems, but the optics required pose a major challenge in scaling. Interfacing low-noise atomic qubits with scalable integrated photonics [1] has emerged as a promising route forward, enabling practical extensibility while simultaneously lending robustness to noise in sensitive quantum operations [2]. Beyond scaling, though, such techniques further allow generation of optical field profiles enabling improvements to coherent and incoherent processes [3]. I will discuss modeling work from our group predicting substantially increased cooling rates as well as motional mode bandwidths for both Doppler and ground-state laser cooling in structured light fields [4], routes to quantum logic leveraging related ideas, initial characterization from recent foundry-fabricated trap devices, with fully integrated delivery of all wavelengths required to explore these ideas, and novel photonic components motivated by these applications. Scalable, integrated approaches to control hardware may enable substantial enhancements to basic physical operations in quantum computing as well as precision metrology.

[1] K.K. Mehta, C.D. Bruzewicz, R. McConnell, R.J. Ram, J.M. Sage, and J. Chiaverini. “Integrated optical addressing of an ion qubit.” Nature Nanotechnology 11, 1066-1070 (2016). [2] K.K. Mehta, C. Zhang, M. Malinowski, T.-L. Nguyen, M. Stadler, and J.P. Home. “Integrated optical multi-ion quantum logic.” Nature 586, 533-537 (2020). [3] A. Ricci Vasquez, et al. “Control of an atomic quadrupole transition in a phase-stable standing wave.” PRL 130, 133201 (2023). [4] Z. Xing and K.K. Mehta. “Fast trapped-ion laser cooling in structured light fields.” CLEO FM2A.2 (2023).