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3D-printed micro ion trap technology for quantum information applications

Nature volume 645, pages 362–368 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Trapped-ion applications, such as in quantum information processing1, precision measurements2,3,4,5, optical clocks6 and mass spectrometry7, rely on specialized high-performance ion traps. The last three of these applications typically use traditional machining to customize macroscopic 3D Paul traps8, whereas quantum information processing experiments usually rely on photolithographic techniques to miniaturize the traps and meet scalability requirements9,10. Using photolithography, however, it is challenging to fabricate the complex 3D electrode structures required for optimal confinement. Here we demonstrate a high-resolution 3D printing technology based on two-photon polymerization (2PP)11 that is capable of fabricating large arrays of high-performance miniaturized 3D traps. We show that 3D-printed ion traps combine the advantages, such as strong radial confinement, of traditionally machined 3D traps with on-chip miniaturization. We trap calcium ions in 3D-printed ion traps with radial trap frequencies ranging from 2 MHz to 24 MHz. The tight confinement eases ion cooling requirements and allows us to implement high-quality Rabi oscillations with Doppler cooling only. Also, we demonstrate a two-qubit gate with a Bell-state fidelity of 0.978 ± 0.012. With 3D printing technology, the design freedom is greatly expanded without sacrificing scalability and precision, so that ion trap geometries can be optimized for higher performance and better functionality.

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Fig. 1: Comparison of Paul trap variants.
Fig. 2: Performance comparison of 3D trap versus surface trap.
Fig. 3: 3D printing process and SEM images of a 3D-printed trap (3D-100-Au-V).
Fig. 4: Radial trap frequency scan.
Fig. 5: Cooling and gate operations.
Fig. 6: Outlook.

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Data availability

Source data are provided with this paper. All other data supporting the plots in this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors on request.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the inspiration of C. Matthiesen at the start of the project and J. Oakdale for printing the first demonstration objects. We would also like to acknowledge N. Greene for the help on chamber assembly, W.-T. Chen for the useful guidance on the measurements, B. Saarel for providing the surface trap image, M. Brzeczek and J. Philips for providing preliminary trapping results on horizontal traps, A. L. Castillo for electron-beam deposition, W. L. Smith for creating CAD models, M. M. Biener for the AFM surface roughness measurements and X. Liu for performing the XCT experiments. This work is supported by the UC Multicampus-National Lab Collaborative Research and Training under award no. LFR-20-653698, as well as the Army Research Laboratory under award no. W911NF-23-1-0323, by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, National Quantum Information Science Research Centers, Quantum Systems Accelerator (QSA), by the Noyce Initiative and received some institutional support by NSF grant no. 2016245. Part of this work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under contract DE-AC52-07NA27344 and was supported by the LLNL-LDRD Program under project no. 23-ERD-021. A.J. acknowledges the support of ONR grant nos. N00014-21-1-2597 and N00014-21-1-2720.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Shuqi Xu, Xiaoxing Xia

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Shuqi Xu, Qian Yu, Sumanta Khan, Eli Megidish, Bingran You & Hartmut Häffner

  2. Challenge Institute for Quantum Computation, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Shuqi Xu, Qian Yu, Sumanta Khan, Eli Megidish, Bingran You & Hartmut Häffner

  3. Engineering Directorate, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA

    Xiaoxing Xia & Abhinav Parakh

  4. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Riverside, CA, USA

    Boerge Hemmerling

  5. Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

    Andrew Jayich

  6. Physical and Life Sciences Directorate, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA

    Kristin Beck & Juergen Biener

  7. Computational Research Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Hartmut Häffner

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Contributions

J.B., H.H., X.X., S.X. and E.M. conceived the project. X.X., A.P. and S.X. fabricated and prepared the traps. S.X., Q.Y. and S.K. performed the ion trap measurements. B.Y. carried out structural simulations. K.B., J.B., H.H., B.H. and A.J. coordinated research and provided scientific guidance. All authors participated in interpreting and planning of the experiments. All authors participated in writing the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Shuqi Xu, Xiaoxing Xia, Juergen Biener or Hartmut Häffner.

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Competing interests

J.B., H.H., E.M. and X.X. are named inventors on US patent no. US20230274174A1 and the corresponding PCT application no. WO2022046306A2, titled ‘Miniature ion traps for fast, high-fidelity and scalable quantum computations’.

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Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Fig. 1 SEM image of an array of 200 3D-printed ion trap central regions.

Each region contains RF and DC electrodes only, with no electrical paths. This image is created by stitching together 50 individual 2 × 2 ion trap section images; slight contrast variations between panels reflect the composite assembly.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Optical profilometry measurement on 200 3D-printed ion trap central regions.

Colour bar represents height in the out-of-plane direction (z-axis).

Extended Data Fig. 3 Repeatability of 3D-printed feature dimensions in ion trap central regions.

a, Measured dimensions of printed structures in an ion trap compared with the CAD model dimensions. Blue dots (red triangles) represent in-plane (out-of-plane) dimensions. Grey line represents the ideal one-to-one relationship between the measured dimension to the CAD dimension. b, Variation in measured in-plane, out-of-plane and angular dimensions of selected trap features relative to the CAD model across 90 samples. In-plane measurements (blue) correspond to DC electrode dimensions parallel to the sapphire substrate; out-of-plane measurements (red) to RF electrode heights; angular measurements (yellow) to angles between RF electrodes. Grey bars denote the minimum and maximum values of each feature and coloured area outlined in grey show kernel density estimation. c, Variation in feature dimensions along two orthogonal in-plane directions (x and y) over ten repeated measurements per axis for four independent experiments, each involving sample repositioning, mounting and imaging. Blue (red) dots denote measurements along the x-axis (y-axis).

Source Data

Extended Data Fig. 4 SEM images of fabrication defects.

a, SEM image of the RF electrode surface at a 45° angle, revealing layer-by-layer 2PP-printing-induced roughness. b, Stitch lines between adjacent fields of view on DC electrodes and electrical paths. c, Dust particle on an electrical path, potentially shorting to the ground plane. d, Residual solvent-impurity contamination on 3D-printed structures. e, Surface roughness of the 3D-printed polymer after electron-beam Au deposition.

Extended Data Fig. 5 AFM images of Au coatings.

a,b, 1-μm-thick Au coating deposited on a sapphire substrate. c,d, 1-μm-thick Au coating deposited on a 3D-printed polymer DC electrode. Average roughness is 9.1 nm on sapphire and 6.5 nm on polymer. Peak-to-valley roughness is 58.5 nm on sapphire and 30.6 nm on polymer.

Extended Data Fig. 6 XCT images.

Reconstructed 3D XCT image (top left) of the RF electrode structure, with a horizontal slice (top right) and vertical slices (bottom row) through the electrodes. Bright regions denote the Au coating and colour scales represent the local coating thickness. The low atomic number polymer substrate is not detected, so only the metal layer appears.

Extended Data Fig. 7 FIB SEM cross-sections of two trench designs used in trap 3D-100-Au-V.

a, Secondary electron SEM image of the trench design for the electrical paths. b, The corresponding BSE SEM image. Surface roughness and curtaining artefacts arise from FIB milling and the lighter-grey layer at the trench base reflects Au–C redeposition during the milling process. c,d, Secondary electron SEM image (c) and BSE SEM image (d) of the trench design used in the central region of the ion trap. The thin top layer is a protective carbon coating applied before FIB milling.

Extended Data Fig. 8 3D-printed RF electrodes on microfabricated substrates.

a,b, Photographs of microfabricated Si substrates featuring surface DC electrodes, electrical paths and wire-bonding pads. The substrates are processed on 6-inch wafers and diced into individual chips. c,d, SEM images (top-down and angled views) of a 3D-printed ion trap mounted on these substrates.

Extended Data Fig. 9 Vertical trap iteration 17 (3D-75-Al-V).

a, SEM image of the ion trap central region. The electrodes are annotated in the image. The distance between each pair of opposite RF electrodes is 150 μm, which leads to 75 μm ion–RF electrode distance. b, Design showing the CAD model of printed structures, including electrical paths.

Extended Data Fig. 10 Configuration for two-qubit gate measurement.

Magnetic field is tilted by 45° relative to the substrate. 397 nm laser beam propagates parallel to the substrate, whereas 729 nm and 866 nm beams propagate perpendicular to it. Two ion images are overlaid on the SEM image of trap 3D-75-Al-V.

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Xu, S., Xia, X., Yu, Q. et al. 3D-printed micro ion trap technology for quantum information applications. Nature 645, 362–368 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09474-1

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