Novel devices and atom manipulation

Steven Chu

The program was to explore the use of light to manipulate atoms And other particles, particularly the cooling and trapping of atoms, the manipulation of biological molecules, and the creations of new devices based on these techniques.

Weiping Zhang, Ewan M. Wright, Han Pu +1 more

The dynamical response of an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate manipulated by an integrated atom-optics device, such as a microtrap or a microfabricated waveguide, is studied. We show that when the miniaturization of the device enforces a sufficiently high condensate density, three-body interactions lead to a spatial modulational instability that results in a fundamental limit on the coherent manipulation of Bose-Einstein condensates.

John Maddox

Xia M. Zeng, Weiping Zhang

Although there are many kinds of different techniques developed to manipulate atomic matter waves, a laser beam is still considered as the most effective `optical element' to manipulate atomic waves in atom optics. In the laser-based atom optic devices, the spatial profiles of a laser beam play a central role in controlling the motion of atoms. By choosing different spatial profiles of laser beams, one can construct atom optic devices for different purposes. Recently experimental demonstrations of manipulation of center of mass motion of atoms by time-dependent light field were reported. In this paper we theoretically study the transient effects in atom optics by using a laser pulse train. The reflection and transmission of atoms through the laser pulse train are studied in detail. We find that the laser pulse train acts as both a spatial beam splitter and a `temporal grating' which can both reflect or transmit atoms in spatial domain and `diffract' atoms in the time domain.

Sinisa Coh