We investigate the dynamics of mixed-species ion crystals during transport between spatially distinct locations in a linear Paul trap in the diabatic regime. In a general mixed-species crystal, all degrees of freedom along the direction of transport are excited by an accelerating well, so unlike the case of same-species ions, where only the center-of-mass mode is excited, several degrees of freedom have to be simultaneously controlled by the transport protocol. We design protocols that lead to low final excitations in the diabatic regime using invariant-based inverse engineering for two different-species ions and also show how to extend this approach to longer mixed-species ion strings. Fast transport of mixed-species ion strings can significantly reduce the operation time in certain architectures for scalable quantum-information processing with trapped ions.

• Received 29 June 2014
• Revised 15 October 2014

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.90.053408