Atom chips are a reliable and versatile tool for the production and control of Bose-Einstein Condensates (BECs). They also offer the possibility of realising new, chip-based quantum devices. We have recently produced BECs on an atom chip fabricated with silver foil. Because of its high current capacity, our chip can produce moderately tight traps at distances further from the chip surface, avoiding losses and fragmentation of condensates seen on other experiments. We will also report on our progress towards efficient atom detection using a STIRAP based photoionisation scheme.
We present a practically implementable scheme to realise macroscopic entanglement of a Bose-Einstein condensate on a superconducting atom chip. Our proposal combines the two emerging fields of micro-manipulation of a Bose-Einstein condensate on an atom chip and quantum coherent dynamics in superconducting circuits. Our idea is based on coupling a superconductor flux loop to a Bose-Einstein condensate in a magnetic trap on an atom chip. We treat the superconductor flux loop in quantum superposition of two flux states. Our scheme also provides a platform to realise entangled atoms interferometry through a Bose-Einstein condensate on an atom chip.