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This ion trap forms the heart of an optical clock developed at the National Physical Laboratory in the UK. It consists of a single strontium-88 ion trapped between two endcap electrodes to which an alternating voltage has been applied. The ion is then cooled to a few millikelvin by 422 nm blue light from a frequency-doubled diode laser. The ion is probed by a highly stable diode laser at 674 nm.

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