  Methods for, and limitations to, the generation of entangled states of
trapped atomic ions are examined. As much as possible, state manipulations are
described in terms of quantum logic operations since the conditional dynamics
implicit in quantum logic is central to the creation of entanglement. Keeping
with current interest, some experimental issues in the proposal for trapped-ion
quantum computation by I. Cirac and P. Zoller (University of Innsbruck) are
discussed. Several possible decoherence mechanisms are examined and what may be
the more important of these are identified. Some potential applications for
entangled states of trapped-ions which lie outside the immediate realm of
quantum computation are also discussed.
