Coherent rydberg excitation of a single trapped ion

Summary form only given. Trapped Rydberg ions are a promising new approach to quantum information processing [1, 2]. This idea combines qubit encoding in the ions' ground states with entanglement operations via the Rydberg interaction. It promises to speed up entanglement operations and make them available in larger ion crystals.In this presentation, we will report on our experimental results with trapped strontium Rydberg ions. In particular, we have recently mapped the population from ground to the 42S
_1/2
Rydberg state and back using stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) [3] - to our knowledge the first observed coherently manipulated Rydberg excitation of an ion. Moreover, we will present our observation of fundamental trap effects due to the interaction of the Rydberg ion with the electric trapping field [4]. A solid understanding of these effects is essential for future applications in quantum information processing.In the near future, we plan to excite the ions to even higher Rydberg states and to apply microwave radiation to induce large oscillating dipole moments. In this way, ions should be able to interact at a distance as required for quantum gates via the Rydberg interaction.