Trapping electrons in a room-temperature quadrupole trap
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Abstract
We demonstrate trapping of electrons in a millimeter-sized quadrupole Paul trap driven at 1.6 GHz in a room-temperature ultra-high vacuum setup. Cold electrons are introduced into the trap by ionization of atomic calcium via Rydberg states and stay confined by microwave and static electric fields for several tens of milliseconds. A fraction of these electrons remains trapped longer and shows no measurable loss for measurement times up to a second. Electronic excitation of the motion reveals secular frequencies from several tens to hundreds of MHz. Operating a similar electron Paul trap in a cryogenic environment may provide a platform for all-electric quantum computing with trapped electron spin qubits.