Note: Measuring capacitance and inductance of a helical resonator and improving its quality factor by mutual inductance alteration.

Narrow bandwidth and high voltage radio frequency (RF) is an essential requirement for stable confinement of ions within a RF trap and helical resonators are commonly used for that purpose. Effective capacitance and inductance of a helical resonator are estimated by measuring resonant frequencies for different external loads. Load capacitance of an ion trap can be estimated from this method and a resonator can be constructed for desired resonant frequency. We demonstrate a very simple method to achieve higher Q-factor of a resonator by optimizing mutual separation between the primary antenna and helical coil. We also formulate a set of analytical equations for calculating overall inductance, resistance, and Q-factor of a loaded helical resonator.