Cavity Sideband Cooling of a Single Trapped Ion

We report a demonstration and quantitative characterization of one-dimensional cavity cooling of a single trapped Sr-88(+) ion in the resolved-sideband regime. We measure the spectrum of cavity transitions, the rates of cavity heating and cooling, and the steady-state cooling limit. The cavity cooling dynamics and cooling limit of 22.5(3) motional quanta, limited by the moderate coupling between the ion and the cavity, are consistent with a simple model [Phys. Rev. A 64, 033405 (2001)] without any free parameters, validating the rate equation model for cavity cooling.