Sattelfalle | saddle trap
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Mechanical Paul Trap demonstrator that dynamically stabilizes a ping-pong ball on a rotating saddle-shaped surface.
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- Printables
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- Physics & Astronomy
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- Creative Commons — Attribution — Share Alike
Mechanical Paul Trap – A Macroscopic Ion Trap Demonstrator
This project is a mechanical demonstration of the principle behind a Paul trap. Instead of trapping a charged ion using a rapidly oscillating electric quadrupole field, this setup uses a ping-pong ball and a rotating saddle-shaped surface to make dynamic stabilization directly visible.
A stationary saddle cannot hold the ball at its center: it curves upward in one direction and downward in the other. However, when the saddle rotates at the appropriate speed, the ball can be dynamically stabilized near the center. This provides an intuitive, macroscopic analogy to the principle used in Paul ion traps.
I built this setup as a demonstrator alongside our work with actual trapped ions. The files published here contain the 3D-printed parts I designed around the mechanical setup, including the enclosure and supporting components.
The mechanical trap was inspired by this project on Thingiverse, which I would like to credit as the original reference:
Mechanical Paul Trap – Thingiverse #5249350
The finished setup is well suited for physics demonstrations, teaching, lab tours, and outreach, providing a simple and visually engaging way to introduce the concept of dynamic stabilization and Paul traps.
The FreeCAD file is available to download.