Chip-scale clock

As optical clock technology matures, there will be an increasing desire for compact, portable systems with low power consumption that can be readily manufactured. Integrated trap technology is attractive in this regard. Already global efforts toward quantum information processing with trapped ions, are working towards ion-trap technology utilizing industry standard CMOS fabrication techniques with the incorporation of on-chip waveguided optics and detectors. Such systems would be an ideal technology for optical clocks, allowing a scalable approach to parallel clock operation over arrays of individually trapped ions. This would provide a viable path towards rapid and sustained improvement in state-of-the-art clock performance.