Since about July 15th our single-ion experiment has been in maintenance-mode, but today again some trapping!
The central 'pale blue dot' is a single 88Sr+ ion trapped between the inner electrodes (cylindrical) which are driven with a ~400 Vpp ~16 MHz sine-wave to create a Paul trap. The outer conical electrodes are grounded. The window-reflections of the 422nm cooling laser create the larger circular spots in the top half of the picture. A single laser-cooled 88Sr+ ion emits around 10 million photons per second, making it easily visible on 1s or longer exposures with a DSLR. Sigma 105mm/F2.8 macro objective with a short (13mm?) extension-tube.
Live stream:
