Experiments with Laser-Cooled Ion Crystals

At NIST-Boulder, we laser-cool clouds of Be+ ions to temperatures T < 10mK. At these extremely low temperatures an ion experiences a Coulomb potential that is larger than its thermal energy, and the ions form so-called "Coulomb Liquids" or "Coulomb Crystals." These novel states of matter provide an excellent laboratory system for basic studies of strongly-coupled plasmas, soft condensed matter, and atomic physics, with applications to such topics as precision spectroscopy, quantum information, and anti-matter trapping. In this talk I will give an overview of recent experiments with these ion crystals. In particular, I will show results on studies for which we used a laser "push" beam to generate wakes in the crystal, analogous to wakes behind a ship.