Penning traps are devices for the storage of charged particles using a constant magnetic field and a constant electric field. This kind of trap is particularly well suited for precision measurements of properties of ions and stable subatomic particles which have electric charge. Recently this trap has been used in the physical realization of quantum computation and quantum information processing as well. Currently Penning traps are used at CERN to store antiprotons. Any form of antimatter propulsion for interplanetary voyages will probably use these traps for the same purpose. The invention of the Penning trap is attributed to Hans Georg Dehmelt who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1989 for this work. The structure of a typical Penning trap. ... Current flowing through a wire produces a magnetic field (M) around the wire. ... In physics, an electric field or E-field is an effect produced by an electric charge that exerts a force on charged objects in its vicinity. ... ... Particle physics is a branch of physics that studies the elementary constituents of matter and radiation, and the interactions between them. ... Electric charge is a fundamental conserved property of some subatomic particles, which determines their electromagnetic interactions. ... Molecule of alanine used in NMR implementation of error correction. ... Quantum information processing is concerned with what we can and cannot do with quantum information. ... CERN logo CERN is the European Organization for Nuclear Research, the worlds largest particle physics laboratory, situated on the border between France and Switzerland, just west of Geneva. ... Antimatter is matter that is composed of the antiparticles of those that constitute normal matter. ... Hans Dehmelt (born September 9, 1922 in Görlitz, Germany) is an American physicist, who co-developed the ion trap. ... List of Nobel Prize laureates in Physics from 1901 to the present day. ...

Penning traps use a strong axial magnetic field to confine particles radially and a quadrupole electric field to confine the particles axially. The magnetic field causes charged particles to move in spirals, and the electric field prevents particles from spiraling out of the trap along the magnetic field lines. The static electromagnetic potential can be generated using a set of three electrodes; a ring and two endcaps. The ring and endcaps are hyperboloids of reflection. A potential difference is applied between the ring and endcap. This potential produces a saddle point in the centre of the trap in which traps the ion only along the axial direction. In order to trap the ion in the radial plane a homogeneous magnetic field is applied along the axis to force the ions into circular orbits and keep them in the trap. Current flowing through a wire produces a magnetic field (M) around the wire. ... In physics, an electric field or E-field is an effect produced by an electric charge that exerts a force on charged objects in its vicinity. ... In the physical sciences, potential difference is the difference in potential between two points in a conservative vector field. ... Saddle point in the graph of z=x²-y² In mathematics, a saddle point is a point of a function of two variables which is a stationary point but not a local extremum. ...

The oscillations in the radial plane are composed of two frequencies which are called the magnetron and the cyclotron frequencies. The cyclotron frequency depends on the ratio of electric charge to mass and strength of the magnetic field. This frequency can be measured very accurately and can be used to measure the ratio of masses. Many of the highest-precision mass measurements (masses of the electron, proton, ²H, ¹²C, ²⁰Ne and ²⁸Si) come from Penning traps. A magnetron is a high-powered vacuum tube that generates coherent microwaves. ... 60-inch cyclotron, circa 1939, showing beam of accelerated ions (perhaps protons or deuterons) escaping the accelerator and ionizing the surrounding air causing a blue glow. ... Electric charge is a fundamental conserved property of some subatomic particles, which determines their electromagnetic interactions. ... Mass is a property of physical objects that, roughly speaking, measures the amount of matter they contain. ... Current flowing through a wire produces a magnetic field (M) around the wire. ... Properties The electron is a subatomic particle. ... For alternative meanings see proton (disambiguation). ... General Name, Symbol, Number hydrogen, H, 1 Chemical series nonmetals Group, Period, Block 1, 1, s Appearance colorless Atomic mass 1. ... General Name, Symbol, Number carbon, C, 6 Chemical series nonmetals Group, Period, Block 14, 2, p Appearance black (graphite) colorless (diamond) Atomic mass 12. ... General Name, Symbol, Number neon, Ne, 10 Chemical series noble gases Group, Period, Block 18, 2, p Appearance colorless Atomic mass 20. ... General Name, Symbol, Number silicon, Si, 14 Chemical series metalloids Group, Period, Block 14, 3, p Appearance dark gray, bluish tinge Atomic mass 28. ...

Using the Penning trap has several potential advantages over the radio frequency trap (Paul trap). Firstly, in the Penning trap only static fields are applied and therefore there is no micro-motion and resultant heating of the ion due to the dynamic fields. However laser cooling in the Penning trap is more complicated because one degree of motion (the magnetron motion) cannot be cooled directly. A quadrupole ion trap (also known as a Paul trap, QIT, twisted quadrupole ion trap or sometimes just ion trap) refers to an ion trap that uses static and radio frequency (RF) ~1MHz oscillating electric fields to trap ions as well a mass spectrometer that uses such a trap to... Laser cooling is a technique that uses light to cool atoms to a very low temperature. ...

Secondly the Penning trap can be made larger whilst maintaining strong trapping. The trapped ion can then be held further away from the electrode surfaces. Interaction with patch potentials on the electrode surfaces is responsible for heating and decoherence effects and these effects scale as a high power of the distance between the atom and the electrode. An electrode is a conductor used to make contact with a nonmetallic part of a circuit (e. ... Quantum decoherence is the general term for the consequences of irreversible quantum entanglement. ...

There is also an analytical technique which uses a Penning trap called Fourier Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance mass spectrometry, or FTICR. A new Penning trap is currently being constructed at the University of Chicago Roanoke Campus. Fourier Transform Ion Cylotron Resonance, also known as Fourier Transform Mass Spectrometry, is a type of mass analyzer (or mass spectrometer) for determining the mass to charge ratio (m/z) of ions based on the cyclotron frequency of the ions in a magnetic field. ...

External Links

• Nobel Prize in Physics 1989