The TrapSensor Facility: an Open-Ring 7 Tesla Penning Trap for Laser-Based Precision Experiments

A Penning-trap facility for high-precision mass spectrometry based on a novel detection method has been built. This method consists in measuring motional frequencies of singly-charged ions trapped in strong magnetic fields through the fluorescence photons from laser-cooled Ca-40(+) ions, to overcome limitations faced in electronic single-ion detection techniques. The key element of this facility is an open-ring Penning trap coupled upstream to a preparation Penning trap similar to those used at Radioactive Ion Beam facilities. Here we present a full characterization of the trap and demonstrate motional frequency measurements of trapped ions stored by applying external radiofrequency fields in resonance with the ions' eigenmotions, in combination with time-of-flight identification. The infrastructure developed to observe the fluorescence photons from Ca-40(+) comprising the 12 laser beams and the optical system to register the image in a high-sensitive CCD sensor, has been proved by taking images of the trapped and cooled Ca-40(+) ions. This demonstrates the functionality of the proposed laser-based mass-spectrometry technique, providing a unique platform for precision experiments with implications in different fields of physics.This work was supported by the European Research Council (contract no. 278648-TRAPSENSOR), from the Spanish MINECO/FEDER (project nos. FPA2012-32076, FPA2015-67694-P, FIS2015-69983-P, UNGR10-1E-501, UNGR13-1E-1830), Ramon y Cajal Grant RYC-2012-11391, Juan de la Cierva grant IJCI-2015-26091, Centro Nacional de Particulas, Astroparticulas y Nuclear CPAN13-TM01, and 'Sistema Nacional de Garantia Juvenil y del Programa Operativo de Empleo Juvenil'; from the SpanishMECD(PhD grant nos. FPU15-04679 and FPU17/02596); from Junta de Andalucia/FEDER (project no. IE-57131) and 'Programa de Empleo Juvenil; from Basque Government (PhD grant no. PRE-2015-1-0394) and (project no. IT986-16), and from the University of Granada 'Plan propio-Programa de Intensificacion de la Investigacion PP2017-PRI. I-04'. I.A, L.L. and E.S acknowledge also support from projects OpenSuperQ (820363) and QMiCS (820505) of the EU Flagship on Quantum Technologies. Wewarmly thank Klaus Wendt for arranging the loan of the MALDI-TOF apparatus from the University of Mainz to the University of Granada