Ion Trapping Glass Microspheres

Our masters student Manish alongside post-doc James Millen have built a quadrupole ion-trap which uses alternating electric fields to produce a potential well (like a deep valley) that traps charged particles. 
It really is a beautiful design but very small and delicate. 

High voltages (>1000 V) are needed but we can now trap 10 micron diameter silica spheres!

Here is a video we recorded where we overload the ion trap with loads of glass microspheres. Because their charged surfaces repel one another, they form this semi-stable trace of the trapping field potential (like magnetic lines around a magnet!). 

This is so damn peng. UCL's Optomechanics group loading silica balls into an ion trap and watching them go nutzo. You can see the shape of the electric field. HENCH. Major rezpect to Mannnnnnnny, our lab technician for his hard work.