  Non-Hermitian skin effect (NHSE) describes the exponential localization of
all eigenstates toward boundaries in non-Hermitian systems, and has attracted
intense research interest of late. Here we theoretically propose a scheme in
which the NHSE significantly impacts the external motion of a single trapped
ion through complex spin-motion dynamics. On the one hand, we show the
competition between the NHSE and the coherent Bloch dynamics. On the other
hand, since the NHSE manifests as a non-reciprocal flow in occupied phonon
modes, we demonstrate that such dynamics can have potential applications in
cooling and sensing. Our proposal can be readily implemented using existing
experimental techniques, and offers a scalable (in terms of the available ions
and phonon modes) simulation platform for relevant non-Hermitian physics.
