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Physical Review A

Trapping neutral atoms with a wire

Albrecht Haase, Donatella Cassettari, Björn Hessmo, Jörg Schmiedmayer

Published Sep 13, 2001• 32 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Simple and versatile traps for neutral atoms can be built using the magnetic potentials created by a current-carrying wire and a homogeneous bias field. These traps exhibit favorable scaling properties and can achieve parameters required for Bose-Einstein condensation traps at very low power consumption.
DOI
10.1103/physreva.64.043405

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A Bose-Einstein condensate is created in a simple and robust miniature Ioffe-Pritchard trap, the so-called Z trap. This trap results from the mere combination of a Z-shaped current-carrying wire and a homogeneous bias field. The experimental procedure allows condensation of typically $3\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{5}$ 87Rb{}^{87}\mathrm{Rb}87Rb atoms in the ∣F=2,|F=2,∣F=2, mF=2〉{m}_{F}=2〉mF​=2〉 state close to any mirroring surface, irrespective of the surface structure. Thus it is ideally suited as a simple coherent source for miniature surface traps or for cold atom physics near surfaces.
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In the presented work, we report about the successful creation of a Rubidium Bose-Einstein condensate. We use so called magnetic wire traps, which are especially simple, as they consist out of a wire and a homogeneous bias field. These wire traps are especially suited for Bose-Einstein condensation. Furthermore complex trapping potentials to manipulate a Bose-Einstein condensate can be realized. We combine 'large' and small scale wire traps. The 'large' scale is realized with a massive copper structure, while for the small wire traps we use the so called atom chip. This combination is promising, because it allowed us to develop a condensation process in the copper structure, which is independent of the structures on the atom chip, and thus the exchange of the 'physics' area. First experiments with the Bose-Einstein condensate are presented and discussed in detail.
Many proposals for quantum information processing require precise control over the motion of neutral atoms, as in the manipulation of coherent matter waves or the confinement and localization of individual atoms. Patterns of micron-sized wires, fabricated lithographically on a flat substrate, can conveniently produce large magnetic-field gradients and curvatures to trap cold atoms and to facilitate the production of Bose-Einstein condensates. The intent of this paper is to provide the researcher who has access to a standard clean-room enough information to design and fabricate such devices.