Micro-fabricated stylus ion trap

An electroformed, three-dimensional stylus Paul trap was designed to confine a single atomic ion for use as a sensor to probe the electric-field noise of proximate surfaces. The trap was microfabricated with the UV-LIGA technique to reduce the distance of the ion from the surface of interest. We detail the fabrication process used to produce a 150 mu m tall stylus trap with feature sizes of 40 mu m. We confined single, laser-cooled, Mg-25(+) ions with lifetimes greater than 2 h above the stylus trap in an ultra-high-vacuum environment. After cooling a motional mode of the ion at 4 MHz close to its ground state (< n > = 0.34 +/- 0.07), the heating rate of the trap was measured with Raman side-band spectroscopy to be 387 +/- 15 quanta/s at an ion height of 62 mu m above the stylus electrodes. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.