Figure 1

(a) Transitions for laser cooling \(^{171}\)Yb\(^+\). The ion is laser cooled on the nearly closed 369.5 nm \(^2\)S\(_{1/2}\), F = 1 to \(^2\)P\(_{1/2}\), F = 0 transition. The small amount of off-resonant scattering into the \(^2\)S\(_{1/2}\) F = 0 state is repumped with a 14.7 GHz sideband on the primary cooling laser. Decays from \(^2\)P\(_{1/2}\) can also populate the \(^2\)D\(_{3/2}\) level, which are repumped using a 935 nm laser. (b) Schematics of the ion trap chip and the optimization devices. RF and DC electrodes are used to trap the ion and shuttle it above the diffracting mirror that collects photons from the ion and sends it to photo multiplayer tube (PMT). The PMT counts are processed by the optimiser and DC electrode voltages and cooling laser position are updated using a digital to analogue converter (DAC).