Apparatus for fermion atomic clock, atom interferometry and quantum pumping experiments

Christian Bordé

S. Aubin, A. Teijeiro Garcia, B. J. DeSalvo

Jan Rudolph, Samuel P. Carman, Benjamin E. Garber +7 more

Megan Ivory, Austin R. Ziltz, Charles Fancher +7 more

We present a dual chamber atom chip apparatus for generating ultracold (87)Rb and (39)K atomic gases. The apparatus produces quasi-pure Bose-Einstein condensates of 10(4) (87)Rb atoms in an atom chip trap that features a dimple and good optical access. We have also demonstrated production of ultracold (39)K and subsequent loading into the chip trap. We describe the details of the dual chamber vacuum system, the cooling lasers, the magnetic trap, the multicoil magnetic transport system, the atom chip, and two optical dipole traps. Due in part to the use of light-induced atom desorption, the laser cooling chamber features a sufficiently good vacuum to also support optical dipole trap-based experiments. The apparatus is well suited for studies of atom-surface forces, quantum pumping and transport experiments, atom interferometry, novel chip-based traps, and studies of one-dimensional many-body systems.

Tara M. Fortier

Liang Hu, Enlong Wang, Leonardo Salvi +3 more

Abstract We characterize the performance of a gravimeter and a gravity gradiometer based on the 1S0–3P0 clock transition of strontium atoms. We use this new quantum sensor to measure the gravitational acceleration with a relative sensitivity of after 150 s of integration time, representing the first realisation of an atomic interferometry gravimeter based on a single-photon transition. Various noise contributions to the gravimeter are measured and characterized, with the current primary limitation to sensitivity seen to be the intrinsic noise of the interferometry laser itself. In a gravity gradiometer configuration, a differential phase sensitivity of 1.53 rad was achieved at an artificially introduced differential phase of rad. We experimentally investigated the effects of the contrast and visibility based on various parameters and achieved a total interferometry time of 30 ms, which is longer than previously reported for such interferometers. The characterization and determined limitations of the present apparatus employing 88Sr atoms provides a guidance for the future development of large-scale clock-transition gravimeters and gravity gradiometers with alkali-earth and alkali-earth-like atoms (e.g. 87Sr, Ca, Yb, Cd).