Ions trapped in a harmonic potential of the form z^2 + alpha r^2.

See also R. Rafac, J.P. Schiffer, J.S. Hangst, D.H.E. Dubin and D.J. Wales "Stable configurations of confined cold ionic systems," Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 88, 483 (1991)

The number of ions of equals 6, shown as blue dots. To see other cases, click on :

N=4, N=5, N=7

The crystal may be viewed from different angles by using the slider called ang. You can also change the view by dragging on the image with the mouse.

The trap parameter alpha can be changed by using the second slider labelled alpha.

The web interface is slow. To better view the crystals, use the menu at the bottom right side of the crystal viewer to download the viewer, which can be deployed either in Mathematica or in the free Wolfram CDF player. At the very bottom of this page you can download the raw position data as a text file.