ITN Newsletter - June 2026 - Ion Traps Newsletter

Index

Foreword
Events
Jobs

Foreword

Dear Ion Trappers,

As summer begins and the temperatures rise, we would like to thank you for the ongoing engagement from the iontrap community, who keep the conversation lively by sharing their latest news, events, jobs, publications, and editorials. Visit the ITN-Website (https://iontraps.net/) where you can download the current and archived issues and send us your submissions and events directly using the forms. Please continue to send us your thoughts; your contributions make our newsletter vibrant and enriching.

Events

14th European Frequency and Time Seminar (EFTS)

June 29 – July 3, 2026

Besançon, France

30th Central European Workshop on Quantum Optics (CEWQO30)

July 20–24, 2026

Erlangen, Germany

Quantum Computing User Forum 2026

July 20–24, 2026

Oak Ridge, USA

NACTI 2026 – 5th North American Conference on Trapped Ions

July 21–24, 2026

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA

Quantum Science Gordon Research Conference

July 26–31, 2026

Easton, Massachusetts, USA

QSim2026 – Quantum Simulation Conference

August 10–14, 2026

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Early Career Conference in Trapped Ions (ECCTI) 2026

September 6–11, 2026

Oxford, United Kingdom

HCI 2026 – International Conference on the Physics of Highly Charged Ions

September 7–11, 2026

Huizhou, China

TCP2026 – Conference on Trapped Charged Particles and Fundamental Physics

September 13–18, 2026

Location TBA

German Conference on Women in Physics 2026

September 28–30, 2026

RPTU Kaiserslautern, Germany

Les Houches School on Cold Atoms and Ions: Measurement and Dissipation

October 26 – November 6, 2026

Les Houches, France

Physics with Trapped Charged Particles Winter School 2027⁠

January 11–22, 2027

Les Houches, France

QVLS Winter School 2027

February 8–12, 2027

Hannover, Germany

Jobs

Postdoctoral position available at JILA, University of Colorado Boulder, USA, to work on the electron electric dipole moment (eEDM) experiment. The project, jointly advised by Jun Ye and Eric Cornell, involves lasers, ion-beam optics, ion traps, molecular spectroscopy, ultra-high vacuum, magnetic measurement and shielding, cryogenic design, and data acquisition. The preferred start date is late 2026 or early 2027. Applications should include a CV, a 2–4 page research statement, a cover letter, and the names of two references. Applications will be reviewed beginning June 15, 2026. Contact: cornell@jila.colorado.edu. https://jila.colorado.edu

Postdoctoral position available at the Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany, in theoretical astrophysics. The position is initially available for 1.5 years. https://www.tu-braunschweig.de/en/theophys/vacancies

Postdoctoral position available at the University of Hannover and Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Germany, on photonic integrated ion traps. https://www.quantummetrology.de/quaccs/home/

Postdoctoral Fellow position available at the ETH Zürich–PSI Quantum Computing Hub, Switzerland, in ion-trap quantum computing. https://www.psi.ch/en/hr/job-opportunities/74416-postdoctoral-fellow-in-ion-trap-quantum-computing

Senior Scientist position available at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, College Park, Maryland, USA, in trapped-ion quantum science or Rydberg-based quantum sensing. The successful candidate will lead a basic research program within the Quantum Science Branch. This is a full-time, on-site position and U.S. citizenship is required. Applications will be accepted until the position is filled. Contact: joseph.w.britton5.civ@army.mil (reference: search2026irpi).

Staff Scientist (Tenure Track) position available at the ETH Zürich–PSI Quantum Computing Hub, Switzerland, in ion-trap quantum computing. https://www.psi.ch/en/hr/job-opportunities/74174-scientist-tenure-track-in-ion-trap-quantum-computing-80-100

Multiple postdoctoral positions are available in the NIST Ion Storage Group, Colorado, USA. Research areas include quantum simulation and sensing in a Penning trap, trapped-ion quantum information processing and quantum networking, trapped-ion optical clocks and quantum-logic spectroscopy, and precision spectroscopy of single molecular ions. Immediate positions are available with preferred start dates in late 2026 or early 2027. Please contact Dietrich Leibfried (Dietrich.Leibfried@nist.gov) or members of the NIST Ion Storage Group for further information. https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/ion-storage

PhD position available in the Gabelica group at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, within the European Doctoral Network “TRILOGY.” The project focuses on chiral ion spectroscopy on high-resolution mass spectrometers. Candidates should hold a Master’s degree (or equivalent) in Physics or Chemistry and have an excellent academic record. Prior experience with instrumental techniques is advantageous. https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/438956

PhD and postdoctoral positions are available in the Trapped Ion Quantum Information group at ETH Zürich, Switzerland, to work on the quantum control and spectroscopy of the H₃⁺ molecular ion. The group welcomes applications from diverse backgrounds, particularly from outside the direct field of trapped ions. Applications and inquiries should be sent to daniel.kienzler@phys.ethz.ch

PhD position available at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, on trapped-ion qudit-based quantum systems with ¹⁷³Yb⁺. The project focuses on qudit-based quantum information processing using trapped ions. https://werkenbij.uva.nl/en/vacancies/phd-position-in-trapped-ions-qudits-in-173yb-netherlands-14720

MacGillavry Fellowship available at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, in experimental physics. The fellowship is a tenure-track or senior position intended to support women in science. https://werkenbij.uva.nl/en/vacancies/assistant-associate-professor-in-experimental-physics-macgillavry-fellowship-netherlands-14809

Publications
Beating Hermitian Speed Limits for Entanglement Generation via Exceptional Points in a Trapped-Ion System

W. F. Yuan, B. B. Liu, N. Li, G. Y. Ding, W. Q. Ding, H. J. Du, J. C. Li, G. Chen, H. Jing, F. Zhou, Shi-Lei Su, and M. Feng

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 210201 (2026)

Cross-platform hardware benchmark of style-based quantum GANs for data augmentation on superconducting and trapped-ion processors

Julien Baglio

AIP Advances 16, 065008 (2026)

Design and fabrication of ion traps for low RF power dissipation

J. D. Sterk, M. G. Blain, M. Delaney, R. Haltli, E. Heller, A. L. Holterhoff, T. Jennings, N. Jimenez, O. Katz, A. Kozhanov, Z. Meinelt, T. D. Morrison, E. Ou, J. Van Der Wall, C. Noel, D. Stick

AVS Quantum Sci. 8, 023802 (2026)

Direct observation of dynamical quasicondensation and generalized thermalization on different quantum computing platforms

Philipp Frey and Stephan Rachel

Phys. Rev. B 113, 224306 (2026)

Directional motional control via engineered conical intersections in trapped Rydberg ions

Abdessamad Belfakir, Yousra Bouasria, Herschel Rabitz, and Ahmed Ratnani

Phys. Rev. A 113, 052615 (2026)

End-to-End Quantum Algorithms for the Jones Polynomial

Tuomas Laakkonen, Enrico Rinaldi, Chris N. Self, Eli Chertkov, Matthew DeCross, David Hayes, Brian Neyenhuis, Marcello Benedetti, and Konstantinos Meichanetzidis

PRX Quantum 7, 020355 (2026)

Error-resilient fast entangling gates for scalable ion-trap quantum processors

Isabelle Savill-Brown, Zain Mehdi, Alexander K. Ratcliffe, Varun D. Vaidya, Haonan Liu, Simon A. Haine, C. Ricardo Viteri, and Joseph J. Hope

Phys. Rev. A 113, 052610 (2026)

Euclidean-Monte-Carlo-informed ground-state preparation for quantum simulation of scalar field theory

Navya Gupta, Christopher David White, and Zohreh Davoudi

Phys. Rev. D 113, 114515 (2026)

Fast Native Three-Qubit Gates and Fault-Tolerant Quantum Error Correction with Trapped Rydberg Ions

Katrin Bolsmann, Thiago L. M. Guedes, Weibin Li, Joseph William Peter Wilkinson, Igor Lesanovsky and Markus Müller

Quantum Sci. Technol. (2026)

Feedback cooling and thermometry of a single trapped ion using a knife edge

Hans Dang, Sebastian Luff, Martin Fischer, Markus Sondermann, and Gerd Leuchs

Phys. Rev. A 113, 063717 (2026)

Full programmable quantum computing with trapped-ions using semi-global fields

Yakov Solomons, Yotam Kadish, Lee Peleg, Jonathan Nemirovsky, Amit Ben Kish and Yotam Shapira

Quantum Sci. Technol. 11, 025036 (2026)

Geometry-resolved suppression of patch-potential heating in skeleton-electrode ion traps

Chon-Teng Belmiro Chu, Hao-Chung Chen, Ting Hsu, Hsiang-Yu Lo, Ming-Shien Chang and Guin-Dar Lin

New J. Phys. 28, 064505 (2026)

Hardware-economic manipulation of dual-type 171Yb+ qubits

Y.-J. Yi, Y.-Y. Chen, Y.-H. Hou, Y.-K. Wu, L. Zhang, C. Zhang, Y.-L. Xu, J. Ye, W.-X. Guo, B.-X. Qi, Z.-C. Zhou, P.-Y. Hou, and L.-M. Duan

Phys. Rev. A 113, 052435 (2026)

High-Speed and High-Connectivity Two-Qubit Gates in Long Chains of Trapped Ions

Isabelle Savill-Brown, Joseph J. Hope, Alexander K. Ratcliffe, Varun D. Vaidya, Haonan Liu, Simon A. Haine, C. Ricardo Viteri, and Zain Mehdi

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 190802 (2026)

Improved quantum processor logical error rates via correction and detection

A. Paetznick, B. W. Reichardt, M. P. da Silva, C. Ryan-Anderson, D. Aasen, J. M. Bello-Rivas, J. P. Campora III, R. Chao, A. Chernoguzov, W. van Dam, J. M. Dreiling, C. Foltz, F. Frachon, J. P. Gaebler, T. M. Gatterman, L. Grans-Samuelsson, D. Gresh, D. Hayes, N. Hewitt, C. Holliman, C. V. Horst, J. Johansen, D. Lucchetti, Y. Matsuoka, et al.

Nature 654, 349–355 (2026)

Non-Gaussian phase transition and cascade of instabilities in the dissipative quantum Rabi model

Mingyu Kang, Yikang Zhang, Kenneth R. Brown, and Thomas Barthel

Phys. Rev. A 113, L061703 (2026)

Optimizing Doppler laser cooling protocols for quantum sensing with three-dimensional ion crystals in a Penning trap

John Zaris, Wes Johnson, Athreya Shankar, John J. Bollinger, Allison L. Carter, Daniel H. E. Dubin, and Scott E. Parker

Phys. Rev. A 113, 063103 (2026)

Programmable multiple ion beams based on a magneto-optical trap ion source

Haibo Wang, Haoyu Huang, Jianing Sun, Chunkai Xu, Enliang Wang, Xu Shan, Xiangjun Chen

J. Appl. Phys. 139, 194902 (2026)

Quantum logic operations and algorithms in a single 25-level atomic qudit

Pei Jiang Low, Nicholas C. F. Zutt, Gaurav A. Tathed and Crystal Senko

Nature Communications (2026)

Spectrometry of captured highly charged ions produced following antiproton annihilations

F. P. Gustafsson et al. (AEḡIS Collaboration)

Phys. Rev. Research 8, 023202 (2026)

String-Breaking Dynamics in Quantum Adiabatic and Diabatic Processes

Federica Maria Surace, Alessio Lerose, Or Katz, Elizabeth R. Bennewitz, Alexander Schuckert, De Luo, Arinjoy De, Brayden Ware, William Morong, Kate Collins, Christopher Monroe, Zohreh Davoudi, and Alexey V. Gorshkov

PRX Quantum 7, 020331 (2026)

Superfluidity in the spin-1/2 XY model with power-law interactions

Muhammad Shaeer Moeed, Costanza Pennaforti, Adrian Del Maestro, and Roger G. Melko

Phys. Rev. B 113, 174438 (2026)

Toolchain for shuttling trapped-ion qubits in segmented traps

A. Conta, S. Bogino, F. Köhncke, F. Schmidt-Kaler, U. G. Poschinger

AVS Quantum Sci. 8, 023801 (2026)

Preprints

A framework for the benchmarking of transport-induced excitations in shuttling-based ion-trap quantum processors

Authors: Rodrigo Munoz, Phil Nuschke, Teresa Meiners, Brigitte Kaune, Christian Ospelkaus

Breakeven demonstration of quantum low-density parity-check codes

Authors: Edwin Tham, Michael L. Goldman, Shantanu Debnath, Ashay N. Patel, Jyothi Saraladevi, Jason Nguyen, Erik Nielsen, Neal Pisenti, Kenneth Wright, John Gamble, Nicolas Delfosse

Circuit-Level Noise Estimation via Shuttling in Plaquette Circuits

Authors: Huyen Do, Alexandru Paler

Colloquium: Nuclear clocks

Authors: Andrei Derevianko, R. Elwell, Eric R. Hudson

Cryogenic Time-Division-Multiplexed Voltage Control for Scalable Trapped-Ion Quantum Processors

Authors: Ryutaro Ohira, Shinichi Morisaka, Yoshinori Kurimoto, Toshiaki Inada, Ippei Nakamura, Takefumi Miyoshi, Atsushi Noguchi

Demonstration of transport in an ion trap design for two-dimensional lattices

Authors: Michael Pfeifer, Marco Valentini, Matthias Dietl, Fabian Anmasser, Simon Schey, Jakob Wahl, Philip C. Holz, Clemens Rössler, Yves Colombe, Philipp Schindler

Demonstration of a Multiplexing Trapped Ion Quantum Processing Unit

Authors: F. Anmasser, M. Abu Zahra, K. Schüppert, M. Pototschnig, J. Wahl, M. Dietl, M. Pfeifer, Y. Colombe, J. Repp, M. Brandl, P. Schindler, C. Rössler

Deterministic Single-Photon Emitter Arrays in Hexagonal Boron Nitride by Carbon-Assisted Focused Ion Beam Engineering

Authors: Mangababu Akkanaboina, Rohit Kumar, Brijesh Kumar, Hrushikesh Gawali, Parul Sharma, Ikshvaku Shyam, Anshuman Kumar

Engineered Randomness for Ubiquitous Quantum-Enhanced Metrology in Exponential-Dimensional Manifolds

Authors: Yaoming Chu, Baiyi Yu, Hartmut Häffner, Markus Heyl, Nathan Goldman, Jianming Cai

Error-corrected phase estimation averaged over variable grids on a trapped-ion quantum computer: hyperacuity spectra of a CO molecule adsorbed onto χ-Fe5C2

Authors: Taichi Kosugi, Hirofumi Nishi, Keito Kasebayashi, Hiroki Takahashi, Yu-ichiro Matsushita

Evaluating System-Level Fidelity with Peaked Random Circuits

Authors: Martin Brieger, Florian Krötz, Minh Chung, Dieter Kranzlmüller

Fidelity bounds for spin-dependent kicks with pulsed lasers

Authors: C. Sagaseta, H. Liu, V. D. Vaidya, C. R. Viteri, J. J. García-Ripoll, E. Torrontegui

First direct measurement of 48Ca single β-decay Q value with the TITAN Penning trap

Authors: S. Kakkar, D. Perera, J. Ash, B. Ashrafkhani, J. Cardona, C. Chambers, A. Czihaly, G. Gwinner, Z. Hockenbery, M. Horoi, A. Kwiatkowski, E. Leistenschneider, M. Lykiardopoulou, F. M. Millan, A. Mollaebrahimi, S. Paul, W. S. Porter, D. Ray, M. Redshaw, R. Ringle, C. Walls, A. Weaver

Indistinguishability of photonic qubits emitted from trapped 40Ca+ ions via pulsed excitation

Authors: Pascal Baumgart, Max Bergerhoff, Jonas Meiers, Stephan Kucera, Jürgen Eschner

InterQ: Communication-Aware Scheduling Across Modular QPUs with Classical and Quantum Links

Authors: Vinooth Kulkarni, Jaehyun Lee, Lauren Li, Aaron Orenstein, Xinpeng Li, Shuai Xu, Daniel Blankenberg, Vipin Chaudhary

Near-Optimal Quantum Time Evolution Circuits via Provably Convergent Compression

Authors: Erenay Karacan, Isabel Nha Minh Le, Matteo D’Anna, Juan Carasquilla, Christian B. Mendl, Ivan Rojkov

Non-equilibrium exciton dynamics in tailored molecular potentials of Rydberg ion crystals

Authors: Simon Euchner, Mathias B. M. Svendsen, Igor Lesanovsky

Observation of Non-Gaussian Magnon Dynamics in a Two-Dimensional Long-Range XY Model

Authors: S. -A. Guo, J. -Y. Tan, J. Ye, Y. Jiang, L. Zhang, Y. -X. Chen, H. -J. Chen, H. -Y. Hu, W. -X. Guo, B. -X. Qi, L. He, Z. -C. Zhou, Y. -K. Wu, L. -M. Duan

Observing conformal Floquet dynamics on a digital quantum processor

Authors: Liang-Hong Mo, Bastien Lapierre, Qiang Miao

On the local equivalence of trapped-ion two-qudit gates

Authors: Nikita V. Semenin, Pavel A. Kamenskikh, Ilia V. Zalivako, Anastasiia S. Nikolaeva, Evgeniy O. Kiktenko

Piston control in a two-ion quantum device

Authors: Jing Li, E. Ya. Sherman, Andreas Ruschhaupt

Programmable site-selective spin control in rotating Penning-trap ion crystals

Authors: Nihar Makadia, Julian Y. Z. Jee, Gustavo Café de Miranda, Joseph H. Pham, Michael J. Biercuk, Athreya Shankar, Robert N. Wolf

Quantum repeater segment with free-space coupled co-trapped ions using telecom photon interference

Authors: Max Bergerhoff, Pascal Baumgart, Christian Haen, Jonas Meiers, Tobias Bauer, Jonas Haferkamp, Christoph Becher, Jürgen Eschner

Q-DICE: Quantum Distributed Interconnect Compiler and Emulator

Authors: Michael Silver, Zachary Vernec, Hans-Arno Jacobsen

qstack: Compositional End-to-End Compilation for Fault-Tolerant Quantum Programs

Authors: Andres Paz, Dan Grossman

QuCtrl-BELL: A Compiler-Driven Sub-Microsecond Feedback Control Stack for Scalable Trapped-Ion Quantum Experiments

Authors: Junpeng She, Ruoyu Yan, Zhizhen Qin, Zhanyu Li, Zhongtao Shen, Zichao Zhou, Binxiang Qi, Luming Duan

Reinforcement learning for ion shuttling on trapped-ion quantum computers

Authors: Maximilian Schier, Lea Richtmann, Christian Staufenbiel, Tobias Schmale, Daniel Borcherding, Michèle Heurs, Bodo Rosenhahn

Rydberg state engineering of trapped ions

Authors: Robin Thomm, Vinay Shankar, Natalia Kuk, Marion Mallweger, Ivo Straka, Markus Hennrich

Scalable On-Hardware Training of Quantum Neural Networks and Application to Clinical Data Imputation

Authors: Natansh Mathur, Panagiotis Kl. Barkoutsos, Masako Yamada, Martin Roetteler, Iordanis Kerenidis

Single-Ensemble Multiparameter Squeezing with Qudits

Authors: Xiaoshui Lin, Chunlei Qu, Chong Zu, Chuanwei Zhang

Software-based compensation of AC-line-induced control errors in qubits and qudits

Authors: Gaurav A. Tathed, Nicholas C. F. Zutt, Collin J. C. Epstein, Crystal Senko

Suppression of differential light shifts in ground and metastable trapped-ion qubits

Authors: Drew Parks, Thomas Dellaert, Patrick McMillin, Conrad Roman, Andrei Derevianko, Wesley C. Campbell

Sympathetic Cooling in Trapped Ions with Spectral Selectivity via the Zeeman Shift

Authors: Kavyashree Ranawat, Jiyong Yu, Andrew Van Horn, Jacob Whitlow, Kenneth R Brown, Jungsang Kim

Tensor-Network-Based Distributed Quantum Dynamics on Independent Quantum Computers

Authors: Anurag Dwivedi, Melissa C. Revelle, Daniel S. Lobser, Brian K. McFarland, Edward C. Tortorici, Christopher G. Yale, Susan M. Clark, Philip Richerme, Srinivasan S. Iyengar

Thermodynamic-limit dispersion relations on trapped-ion quantum hardware

Authors: Lucas Marti, Sumeet, Stefan Wolf, K. P. Schmidt, Michael J. Hartmann

Topologically protected long-range correlations in steady states of driven-dissipative bosonic chains

Authors: Miguel Clavero Rubio, Tomás Ramos, Diego Porras

Topological quantum hodographs

Authors: Nikolay Rosanov, Sergey Fedorov, Mikhail Arkhipov

Towards entanglement-enhanced probing of atomic parity violation

Authors: Maxim Sirotin

Transition from Collective to Local Radial Motional Modes in a Tapered Paul Trap

Authors: Manika Bhardwaj, Moritz Göb, Bogomila S. Nikolova, Bernd Bauerhenne, Peter A. Ivanov, Kilian Singer

Trapped-Ion Multiqubit Gates are Compatible with Scalable Quantum Error Correction

Authors: Ori Grossman, Yotam Kadish, Snir Gazit, Amit Ben-Kish, Roee Ozeri, Yotam Shapira