Design and characterization of a planar trap

We demonstrate laser cooling of 40Ca+ ions in a linear-type planar trap where all electrodes are located in a plane. We numerically calculate the potential of a 500 μm scale trap and then characterize the trap by measuring the secular frequencies. Linear crystals of 40Ca+ ions are formed after coarse micromotion compensation. Development of such traps is important for the construction of a many-zone ion-trap array for large-scale quantum information processing using ions. We also present other trap designs and results from numerical analysis.