Laser ablation production of Ba, Ca, Dy, Er, La, Lu, and Yb ions

electron bombardment is applicable to any atomic species, it can reduce the lifetime of the trapped ions by contaminating the vacuum, and the accumulation of charge on insulators can result in additional micromotion or even destabilize the trap. Although photoionization can avoid the issues related to electron bombardment, there can be significant overhead associated with the additional lasers, which can become substantial when working with multiple elements, atoms requiring unconventional wavelengths, or multiplycharged ions. Finally, producing neutral atom flux with a standard resistively-heated source can be difficult when working with elements that aggressively react in air [20, 21], refractory elements that require high temperatures, or where miniaturization or cryogenic designs may prohibit the use of these sources. Given the limitations of standard loading procedures, other methods for loading ion traps are being actively pursued [22, 23]. Laser ablation of a sample offers an alternative method for loading ion traps. In general, a laser pulse with sufficient peak fluence incident on a sample can vaporize a fraction of the material, producing atoms, ions, molecules, and clusters [24, 25]. Thus, for ion trap experiments, ablation can be used as a source of neutral atom flux [26, 27], or can directly produce ions [28–36], including multiplycharged species [37, 38]. In reference [36], Zimmermann et al. demonstrated the use of a compact nitrogen laser for producing ions by laser ablation, including some multiplycharged species. Here, we use a similar setup to measure the ion yield from several elements, including lanthanum, erbium, and dysprosium, which have only recently been proposed for use in cold trapped ion experiments [39, 40]. We then focus on barium ion production, investigating the ion yield for different samples as a function of the number of ablation pulses applied, the ion yield as a function of the Abstract We use a pulsed nitrogen laser to produce atomic ions by laser ablation, measuring the relative ion yield for several elements, including some that have only recently been proposed for use in cold trapped ion experiments. For barium, we monitor the ion yield as a function of the number of applied ablation pulses for different substrates. We also investigate the ion production as a function of the pulse energy, and the efficiency of loading an ion trap as a function of radiofrequency voltage.