April Fools Ion

Despite the lockdown, some trapping in the lab this week. First single-ion experiments this year, after the 405 nm laser broke in January. Not much going on in these videos, but at least it's a single ion!

Sigma=60 Hz for the AOM frequency, so FWHM ~120 Hz AOM, and FWHM 240 Hz optical.

First clock-transition linewidth measurement give about a 200 Hz wide transition, so around 5e-13 fractionally.

40-channel RF multiplexer

Just installed three of these 1U dual-1:8 RF-mutliplexers in the lab to make a 40-channel 1PPS measurement system. These are built by Aivon.

Time will tell how robust these are and if there are any failures in continuous use... Initial results from the field are good however.

We connect these in a depth-2 tree. One 1:8 mux is the top-level switch, with the remaining 5 providing 40 input-channels. This easily expands to 64 channels by adding one more 1U box. Beyond that I guess a depth-3 tree connection is required.