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arXiv:quant-ph/0601163 · Physical Review A

Trapping atoms on a transparent permanent-magnet atom chip

Andriy Shevchenko, M. Heiliö, Thomas Lindvall, A. Jaakkola, Ilkka Juhani Tittonen, M. Kaivola, Tilman Pfau

Published May 5, 2006• 16 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We describe experiments on the trapping of atoms in microscopic magneto-optical traps on an optically transparent permanent-magnet atom chip. The chip is made of magnetically hard ferrite-garnet material deposited on a dielectric substrate. The confining magnetic fields are produced by miniature magnetized patterns recorded in the film by magneto-optical techniques. We trap Rb atoms on these structures by applying three crossed pairs of counterpropagating laser beams in the conventional magneto-optical trapping geometry. We demonstrate the flexibility of the concept in creation and in situ modification of the trapping geometries through several experiments.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.73.051401

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We describe experiments on the trapping of atoms in microscopic magneto-optical traps on an optically transparent permanent-magnet atom chip. The chip is made of magnetically hard ferrite-garnet material deposited on a dielectric substrate. The confining magnetic fields are produced by miniature magnetized patterns recorded in the film by magneto-optical techniques. We trap Rb atoms on these structures by applying three crossed pairs of counterpropagating laser beams in the conventional magneto-optical trapping geometry. We demonstrate the flexibility of the concept in creation and in situ modification of the trapping geometries through several experiments.
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We demonstrate the possibility of trapping about one hundred million rubidium atoms in a magneto-optical trap with several of the beams passing through a transparent atom chip mounted on a vacuum cell wall. The chip is made of a gold microcircuit deposited on a silicon carbide substrate, with favorable thermal conductivity. We show how a retro-reflected configuration can efficiently address the chip birefringence issues, allowing atom trapping at arbitrary distances from the chip. We also demonstrate detection through the chip, granting a large numerical aperture. This configuration is compared to other atom chip devices, and some possible applications are discussed.
We report progress in our project on Integrated Atom Optics. We are exploring methods of producing surface-based microscopic atom optical elements that are made from permanent magnetic films and current-carrying microwires. We will discuss different configurations of microtraps, waveguides and couplers that can manipulate atomic de Broglie waves on the surface of a substrate. In particular we will describe the characteristics of a mirror magneto-optical trap that has allowed trapping of rubidium atoms in vicinity of a surface.
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We describe a dynamic magneto-optical trap (MOT) suitable for the use with vacuum systems in which optical access is limited to a single window. This technique facilitates the long-standing desire of producing integrated atom chips, many of which are likely to have severely restricted optical access compared with conventional vacuum chambers. This 'switching-MOT' relies on the synchronized pulsing of optical and magnetic fields at audio frequencies. The trap's beam geometry is obtained using a planar mirror surface, and does not require a patterned substrate or bulky optics inside the vacuum chamber. Central to the design is a novel magnetic field geometry that requires no external quadrupole or bias coils which leads toward a very compact system. We have implemented the trap for 85 Rb and shown that it is capable of capturing 2 million atoms and directly cooling below the Doppler temperature.