A Scalable Stacked-Electrode Printed Circuit Board Radio-Frequency Quadrupole (PCB-RFQ) for Precision Experiments
Abstract
Linear radio-frequency quadrupole (RFQ) traps are crucial for ion and phase-space manipulation across diverse physics platforms, including quantum information processing, precision atomic spectroscopy, and high-resolution mass or laser spectrometry. We present the design, electrostatic field optimization, and performance characterization of a scalable, multi-layer printed circuit board (PCB) linear RFQ trap. By utilizing a PCB-based "stacked-electrode" geometry to generate high-quality quadrupolar fields, this architecture suppresses higher-order multipole field components by up to an order of magnitude compared to planar "flat surface-electrode" designs and allows for reclaiming up to 60% of the radial pseudopotential-well depth of an ideal hyperbolic quadrupole. Following a thorough optimisation and characterization using both simulations and experiments, we demonstrate its suitability as a cooler buncher, showing rapid helium buffer-gas cooling with time constants between 34 +/- 3 us and 412 +/- 23 us, and achieving a highly compressed longitudinal phase-space emittance of only 58 +/- 4 eV*ns. The low beam emittance provides flexible control of the extracted bunch properties: weak extraction fields yield energy spreads down to 2.5 +/- 0.4 eV, whereas strong fields produce ultra-narrow temporal widths down to 2.6 +/- 0.3 ns. The results establish our PCB-RFQ platform as a versatile, scalable, and cost-effective alternative to traditionally machined rod-based RFQ assemblies for advanced ion-trapping, beam-preparation, or quantum applications.
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BibTeX
@misc{fowlerdavis2026scalable,
title = {{A Scalable Stacked-Electrode Printed Circuit Board Radio-Frequency Quadrupole (PCB-RFQ) for Precision Experiments}},
author = {Tayemar K. Fowler-Davis and Moritz Pascal Reiter and Nawaf Altasan and Samuel Ayet San Andrés and Peter Black and Jason Breyiannis and Callum L. Brown and Peter Dasiukevich and Adam Zaki Davies and Timo Dickel and Oscar Hall and Alexandru Hau and Jamie C. Jones and Jan Kocka and Gabriella Kripkó-Koncz and Konrad Linkowski and Adam J. McCarter and Sophia Scrimshaw and Joe Simon and Jack Lee Smith and Wolfgang R. Plaß and Gemma Robertson and Jiajun Yu and Alexandra Zadvornaya},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.35825},
eprint = {2609.35825},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.35825},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - A Scalable Stacked-Electrode Printed Circuit Board Radio-Frequency Quadrupole (PCB-RFQ) for Precision Experiments
AU - Tayemar K. Fowler-Davis
AU - Moritz Pascal Reiter
AU - Nawaf Altasan
AU - Samuel Ayet San Andrés
AU - Peter Black
AU - Jason Breyiannis
AU - Callum L. Brown
AU - Peter Dasiukevich
AU - Adam Zaki Davies
AU - Timo Dickel
AU - Oscar Hall
AU - Alexandru Hau
AU - Jamie C. Jones
AU - Jan Kocka
AU - Gabriella Kripkó-Koncz
AU - Konrad Linkowski
AU - Adam J. McCarter
AU - Sophia Scrimshaw
AU - Joe Simon
AU - Jack Lee Smith
AU - Wolfgang R. Plaß
AU - Gemma Robertson
AU - Jiajun Yu
AU - Alexandra Zadvornaya
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/22
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.35825
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.35825
AB - Linear radio-frequency quadrupole (RFQ) traps are crucial for ion and phase-space manipulation across diverse physics platforms, including quantum information processing, precision atomic spectroscopy, and high-resolution mass or laser spectrometry. We present the design, electrostatic field optimization, and performance characterization of a scalable, multi-layer printed circuit board (PCB) linear RFQ trap. By utilizing a PCB-based "stacked-electrode" geometry to generate high-quality quadrupolar fields, this architecture suppresses higher-order multipole field components by up to an order of magnitude compared to planar "flat surface-electrode" designs and allows for reclaiming up to 60% of the radial pseudopotential-well depth of an ideal hyperbolic quadrupole. Following a thorough optimisation and characterization using both simulations and experiments, we demonstrate its suitability as a cooler buncher, showing rapid helium buffer-gas cooling with time constants between 34 +/- 3 us and 412 +/- 23 us, and achieving a highly compressed longitudinal phase-space emittance of only 58 +/- 4 eV*ns. The low beam emittance provides flexible control of the extracted bunch properties: weak extraction fields yield energy spreads down to 2.5 +/- 0.4 eV, whereas strong fields produce ultra-narrow temporal widths down to 2.6 +/- 0.3 ns. The results establish our PCB-RFQ platform as a versatile, scalable, and cost-effective alternative to traditionally machined rod-based RFQ assemblies for advanced ion-trapping, beam-preparation, or quantum applications.
ER -