Trapping and Optical Detection of Doubly-charged Ytterbium Ions

Forbidden optical transitions in trapped ions are of great interest for high precision spectroscopic applications. The insensitivity to ambient fields of the $^{1}$S$_{0}$ -- $^{3}$P$_{0}$ transition in Yb$^{2+}$ coupled with the isolation from the environment provided by trapped ions makes this system particularly appealing. We report on trapping and optical detection of isotopically-pure, laser-cooled samples of doubly-charged Ytterbium ions. We discuss future work to be done with these and singly-charged Ytterbium ions in the same apparatus.