Abstract.We present a hybrid atom chip which combines a permanent magnetic film with a micromachined current-carrying structure used to realize a Bose-Einstein condensate. A novel TbGdFeCo material with large perpendicular magnetization has been tailored to allow small scale, stable magnetic potentials for ultracold atoms. We are able to produce 87 Rb Bose-Einstein condensates in a magnetic trap based on either the permanent magnetic film or the current-carrying structure. Using the condensate as a magnetic field probe we perform cold atom magnetometry to profile both the field magnitude and gradient as a function of distance from the magnetic film surface. Finally we discuss future directions for our permanent magnetic film atom chip.
Periodically grooved, micron-scale structures incorporating perpendicularly magnetized Gd 10 Tb 6 Fe 80 Co 4 magneto-optical films have been fabricated and characterized. Such structures produce a magnetic field having flat equipotentials and whose magnitude decays exponentially with distance above the surface, making them attractive for manipulating ultracold atoms in atom optics. The GdTbFeCo films have been deposited on a Cr underlayer on a silicon (100) wafer and on a grooved silicon microstructure using DC magnetron sputtering. The films are found to have excellent magnetic properties for magnetic atom optics applications, including high remanent magnetization, high coercivity and excellent homogeneity.
We consider the evolution of a single-atom wavefunction in a time-dependent double-well interferometer in the presence of a spatially asymmetric potential. We examine a case where a single trapping potential is split into an asymmetric double well and then recombined again. The interferometer involves a measurement of the first excited state population as a sensitive measure of the asymmetric potential. Based on a two-mode approximation a Bloch vector model provides a simple and satisfactory description of the dynamical evolution. We discuss the roles of adiabaticity and asymmetry in the double-well interferometer. The Bloch model allows us to account for the effects of asymmetry on the excited state population throughout the interferometric process and to choose the appropriate splitting, holding and recombination periods in order to maximize the output signal. We also compare the outcomes of the Bloch vector model with the results of numerical simulations of the multi-state time-dependent Schrödinger equation.
We experimentally demonstrate interferometer-type guiding structures for neutral atoms based on dipole potentials created by microfabricated optical systems. As a central element we use an array of atom waveguides being formed by focusing a red-detuned laser beam with an array of cylindrical microlenses. Combining two of these arrays, we realize X-shaped beam splitters and more complex systems like the geometries for Mach-Zehnder and Michelson-type interferometers for atoms.
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