We present a compact, transportable system that produces Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) near the surface of an integrated atom microchip. The system occupies a volume of 0.4 m 3 and operates at a repetition rate as high as 0.3 Hz. Evaporative cooling in a chip trap with trap frequencies of several kHz leads to nearly pure condensates containing 1.9×10 4 87 Rb atoms. Partial condensates are observed at a temperature of 1.58(8) µK, close to the theoretical transition temperature of 1.1 µK.Since the first experimental demonstrations of BoseEinstein condensation (BEC) in a gas of neutral atoms, 1-3 studies of BEC and related forms of ultracold matter have been largely motivated by purely scientific interests. The complexity and size of the required apparatus necessitate that these experiments remain confined to research laboratories. However it has become increasingly evident that ultracold matter can play a utilitarian role in applications such as atomic clocks, inertial sensors, and electric and magnetic field sensing.4-9 Indeed, much of the work on ultracold atom chip technology is predicated on the need for compact systems that can find their way out of the laboratory and into the field.We present here a compact, movable, microchip-based BEC production system that occupies a volume of 0.4 m 3 , operates at a repetition rate as high as 0.3 Hz, and produces BECs containing 1.9×10 4 atoms in the |F = 2, m F = 2 ground state of 87 Rb (see Fig. 1). The system contains all of the components needed to produce and image BECs, including an ultra-high vacuum (UHV) system, lasers, data acquisition hardware, electronics, and imaging equipment. The system can be easily reconfigured for use with atom chips having unique wire patterns designed for different applications. As such, it can serve as a standardized platform for a variety of portable experiments that utilize ultracold matter.

A simple fabrication technique to create all silicon/glass microfluidic devices is demonstrated using femtosecond laser ablation and anodic bonding. In a first application, we constructed a cell counting device based on small angle light scattering. The counter featured embedded optical fibers for multiangle excitation and detection of scattered light and/or fluorescence. The performance of the microfluidic cell counter was benchmarked against a commercial fluorescence-activated cell sorter.

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We present an experimental apparatus that produces Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) of 87 Rb atoms at a rate of 1 Hz. As a demonstration of the system's ability to operate continuously, 30 BECs were produced and imaged in 32.1 s. Without imaging, a single BEC could be produced in 953 ms. The system uses an atom chip to confine atoms in a dimple trap with frequencies exceeding 1 kHz. With this tight trap, the duration of evaporative cooling can be reduced to less than 0.5 s. Using principal component analysis, insight into the largest sources of noise and drift was obtained by extracting the dominant contributions to the variance. The system utilizes a compact physics package that can be integrated with lasers and electronics to create a transportable ultracold-atom device for applications outside of a laboratory environment.

An atom-chip-based integrated optical lattice system for cold and ultracold atom applications is presented. The retroreflection optics necessary for forming the lattice are bonded directly to the atom chip, enabling a compact and robust on-chip optical lattice system. After achieving Bose-Einstein condensation in a magnetic chip trap, we load atoms directly into a vertically oriented 1D optical lattice and demonstrate Landau-Zener tunneling. The atom chip technology presented here can be readily extended to higher dimensional optical lattices.