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arXiv:0812.3940 · Physical Review A

Trapping cold atoms using surface-grown carbon nanotubes

Plamen G. Petrov, Shimon Machluf, S. Younis, Roberto Macaluso, T. David, Benjamin Hadad, Yonathan Japha, Mark Keil, Ernesto Joselevich, R. Folman

Published Apr 1, 2009• 29 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We present a feasibility study for loading cold atomic clouds into magnetic traps created by single-wall carbon nanotubes grown directly onto dielectric surfaces. We show that atoms may be captured for experimentally sustainable nanotube currents, generating trapped clouds whose densities and lifetimes are sufficient to enable detection by simple imaging methods. This opens the way for a different type of conductor to be used in atomchips, enabling atom trapping at submicron distances, with implications for both fundamental studies and for technological applications.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.79.043403

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We present a feasibility study for loading cold atomic clouds into magnetic traps created by single-wall carbon nanotubes grown directly onto dielectric surfaces. We show that atoms may be captured for experimentally sustainable nanotube currents, generating trapped clouds whose densities and lifetimes are sufficient to enable detection by simple imaging methods. This opens the way for a different type of conductor to be used in atomchips, enabling atom trapping at submicron distances, with implications for both fundamental studies and for technological applications.
We investigate the possibility of trapping ultracold 87Rb^{87}\mathrm{Rb}87Rb atoms near the outside of a metallic carbon nanotube, which we imagine using as a miniaturized current-carrying wire. We calculate atomic spin-flip lifetimes and compare the strength of the Casimir-Polder potential with the magnetic trapping potential. Our analysis indicates that the Casimir-Polder force is the dominant loss mechanism, and we compute the minimum distance to the carbon nanotube at which the atoms can be trapped to be larger than 100nm100\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{nm}100nm.
A new model of cold atoms trap using a carbon nanotube is proposed. In this model, for the existence of a stable bound state of cold atom, we send a strong electromagnetic field through the carbon nanotube. This field generates an evanescent wave around the carbon nanotube and creates an effective attractive potential. The consideration of some possible boundary conditions leads to this non-trivial bound state solution. We compare also our result to the two most recent models concerning trapping of cold atoms by using a charged carbon nanotube and an optical fiber.
Abstract We propose an experimentally viable setup for the realization of one-dimensional ultracold atom gases in a nanoscale magnetic waveguide formed by single doubly-clamped suspended carbon nanotubes. We show that all common decoherence and atom loss mechanisms are small guaranteeing a stable operation of the trap. Since the extremely large current densities in carbon nanotubes are spatially homogeneous, our proposed architecture allows to overcome the problem of fragmentation of the atom cloud. Adding a second nanowire allows to create a double-well potential with a moderate tunneling barrier which is desired for tunneling and interference experiments with the advantage of tunneling distances being in the nanometer regime. 1
We describe a novel single atom detector that uses the high electric field surrounding a charged single-walled carbon nanotube to attract and subsequently field-ionize neutral atoms. A theoretical study of the field-ionization tunneling rates for atomic trajectories in the attractive potential near a nanowire shows that a broadly applicable, high spatial resolution, low-power, neutral-atom detector with nearly 100% efficiency is realizable with present-day technology. Calculations also show that the system can provide the first opportunity to study quantized conductance phenomena when detecting cold neutral atoms with mean velocities less than 15 m/s.
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We show that nanofabricated magnetic textures allow the trapping and manipulation of nanosize diamagnetic systems, such as carbon nanotubes, proteins and membranes as well as cold atoms. The latter can have temperatures as high as 1 K. Magnetic textures which can be used as traps, include films, dots and nanowires, both single and in arrays. Manipulation with trapped nanoparticles/atoms is possible by using external magnetic fields. We also briefly discuss prospects for magnetic traps at the micron scale.