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Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics

A neutral atom and a thin wire: on the road to mesoscopic atom optics

Johannes Hecker Denschlag, Jörg Schmiedmayer

Published Nov 27, 2002• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Summary form only given.Cooling and trapping techniques developed in recent years allow for the preparation of cold and dense samples of neutral atoms with a typical deBroglie wavelength of the order of 100 nm or larger, which is in the range of modern nanofabrication technology. In our work we study the motion of cold neutral atoms in potentials that are produced by thin material filaments . In particular, we will discuss the interactions suitable for guiding and trapping neutral atoms/molecules.

DOI
10.1109/iqec.1998.680491

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Summary form only given.Cooling and trapping techniques developed in recent years allow for the preparation of cold and dense samples of neutral atoms with a typical deBroglie wavelength of the order of 100 nm or larger, which is in the range of modern nanofabrication technology. In our work we study the motion of cold neutral atoms in potentials that are produced by thin material filaments . In particular, we will discuss the interactions suitable for guiding and trapping neutral atoms/molecules.
Abstract : We have trapped large numbers of neutral atoms, and cooled them to millikelvin temperatures. Our next objective is to cool them to microkelvin temperatures. Dense samples of atoms cooled to microkelvin temperatures promise to open up new and exciting areas of physics. The lack of interaction of the low velocity atoms due to their reduced thermal motion, together with the possibility of indefinitely long interaction times, make samples of trapped atoms ideal for high resolution spectroscopy and for use as atomic frequency standards. Our main current effort in neutral atom trapping is cooling of trapped atoms to low temperatures. While this remains a difficult and elusive goal (to date, micro-kelvin temperatures have only been achieved with untrapped atoms), the rewards for supercooling trapped atoms appear to be high. The long confinement times, together with the reduced thermal motion of cold atoms, could result in a new era of ultra-high resolution spectroscopy and precise frequency standards. Potentially more exciting is the possibility of combining the high densities achievable in traps and the long deBroglie wavelength of ultra-cold atoms to observe novel quantum collective phenomena.
We report on the experimental realisation of traps and guides for neutral atoms on a nanofabricated chip. Our main results are: (a) Trap parameters with a transverse ground state size below 100 nm and frequencies of above 100 kHz (as required by QIP proposals) have been achieved. (b) We could trap and guide atoms exclusively with the fields created on the chip. (c) We have shown that a wide variety of magnetic potentials may be realised, such as quadrupole fields for a MOT, 3D minima for trapping, 2D minima for guiding, and beam splitters. (d) It has been shown that standard nanofabrication techniques and materials may he utilised to build these atom chips. The wires on the surface can stand sufficiently high current densities in vacuum and at room temperature.
Atom optics has been a highly active field of research with many scientific breakthroughs over the past two decades, largely due to successful advances in laser technology, microfabrication techniques, and the development of laser cooling and trapping of neutral atoms. This dissertation details several atom optics experiments with the motivation to develop tools and techniques for precision atom wave interferometry. It provides background information about atom optics and the fundamentals behind laser cooling and trapping, including basic techniques for cold gas thermometry and absorptive detection of atoms. A brief overview of magnetic trapping and guiding in tight wire-based traps is also provided before the experimental details are presented. ❧ We developed a novel laser source of 780 nm light using frequency-doubled 1560 nm fiber amplifier. This laser system provided up to a Watt of tunable frequency stabilized light for two Rb laser cooling and trapping experiments. One system generates Bose-Einstein condensates in an optical trap while the second is based on atom chip magnetic traps. The atom chip system, detailed in this thesis, was designed and built to develop the tools necessary for transport and loading large numbers of cold atoms and explore the potential for guided atom interferometry. Techniques and results from this experiment are presented, including an efficient magnetic transport and loading method to deliver cold atom to atom chip traps. We also developed a modeling tool for the magnetic fields formed by coiled wire geometries, as well as planar wire patterns. These models helped us design traps and determine adiabatic transportation of cold atoms between macro-scale traps and micro-traps formed on atom chips. Having achieved near unity transfer efficiency, we demonstrated that this approach promises to be a consistent method for loading large numbers of atoms into micro-traps. Furthermore, we discuss an in situ imaging technique to investigate magnetic field contours of the traps and the dynamics of atoms within those confining potentials. We also controlled the propagation along the atom chip guides by accelerating atoms with longitudinal magnetic gradients, and investigated an atom focusing scheme. ❧ While the atom chip wire guides perform a role analogous to optical fibers guiding light waves, ""free space"" cold atoms offer great opportunity for precision interferometry. We describe a second on-going atom optics experiment that measures gravity gradients using a pair of atom fountain interferometers separated by one meter. We have demonstrated Gravity Gradiometer resolution down to 4x10⁻⁹ g/m using a 40 kg test mass. The atomic physics subsystem is described in detail, including the vacuum, cold atom source, optics, magnetic coils and shields, and vibration isolation and compensation. The system is designed to be a compact, robust, transportable instrument, taking strides towards future gravity gradient measurements in the field. In the realm of space applications, there has been interest for micro-gravity science experiments aboard the International Space Station, along with instrument development for gravity mapping of Earth and planetary bodies with satellite-based instruments. Furthermore, there are ground-based applications for gravity imaging of local density distributions, precision measurement of gravity, as well as proposals for redefining the kilogram, detecting gravitational waves and determining the Gravitational constant.
In recent years, there has been significant interest in the laser manipulation of neutral atoms, and specifically in the use of light fields to manipulate not only the internal but also the external coordinates of an atom. Among the most dramatic results of this work have been the production of dense ultra-cold samples of trapped neutral atoms. These samples have been used to expand the horizons of fundamental physics and have made possible significant advancements in metrology. Furthermore, the ability to manipulate atomic motion with light has helped to create entirely new fields of research such as atom optics where matter wave analogues of light wave systems are investigated and optical where light is used to create a periodic array of atoms similar to crystals.
Summary form only given. We report on the experimental realisation of traps and guides for neutral atoms on a nanofabricated chip. Our main results are: (a) Trap parameters with a transverse ground state size below 100 nm and frequencies of above 100 kHz (as required by QIP proposals) have been achieved. (b) We could trap and guide atoms exclusively with the fields created on the chip. (c) We have shown that a wide variety of magnetic potentials may be realised, such as quadrupole fields for a MOT, 3D minima for trapping, 2D minima for guiding, and beam splitters. (d) It has been shown that standard nanofabrication techniques and materials may he utilised to build these atom chips. The wires on the surface can stand sufficiently high current densities in vacuum and at room temperature.