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We report on the trapping of long-lived strongly magnetized Rydberg atoms. 85Rb atoms are laser cooled and collected in a superconducting magnetic trap with a strong bias field (2.9 T) and laser excited to Rydberg states. Collisions scatter a small fraction of the Rydberg atoms into long-lived high-angular momentum "guiding-center" Rydberg states, which are magnetically trapped. The Rydberg atomic cloud is examined using a time-delayed, position-sensitive probe. We observe magnetic trapping of these Rydberg atoms for times up to 200 ms. Oscillations of the Rydberg-atom cloud in the trap reveal an average magnetic moment of the trapped Rydberg atoms of approximately -8microB. These results provide guidance for other Rydberg-atom trapping schemes and illuminate a possible route for trapping antihydrogen.

Millimeter-scale micro-robotic leg actuators are described that integrate thin-film lead zirconate titanate (PZT) piezoelectric actuation with compliant structures formed from parylene-C polymer. Models for out-of-plane rotation using piezoelectric cantilevers and in-plane rotation using highaspect ratio polymer beams are discussed. Opportunities are highlighted for thin polymer films to aid in load-bearing, flexibility, and resilience of piezoelectric micro-robot appendages. A simple 5 mm 9 2.4 mm 9 0.15 mm hexapod robot prototype incorporating multiple actuators in each leg assembly is fabricated and tested within the silicon wafer in which it was built. Completed robot leg performance shows close agreement between modeled and tested static and dynamic characteristics, with potential benefits for future walking micro-robots from low power requirements relative to payload capacity and large amplitude motion at resonance.

A novel three degree-of-freedom microactuator based on thin-film lead-zirconate-titanate (PZT) is described with its detailed structural model. Its central rectangular-shaped mirror platform, also referred to as the stage, is actuated by four symmetric PZT bending legs such that each leg provides vertical translation for one corner of the stage. It has been developed to support real-time in vivo vertical cross-sectional imaging with a dual axes confocal endomicroscope for early cancer detection, having large displacements in three axes (z, θx, θy) and a relatively high bandwidth in the z-axis direction. Prototype microactuators closely meet the performance requirements for this application; in the out-of-plane (z-axis) direction, it has shown more than 177 μm of displacement and about 84 Hz of structural natural frequency, when two diagonal legs are actuated at 14V. With all four legs, another prototype of the same design with lighter stage mass has achieved more than 430 μm of out-of-plane displacement at 15V and about 200 Hz of bandwidth. The former design has shown approximately 6.4° and 2.9° of stage tilting about the x-axis and y-axis, respectively, at 14V. This paper also presents a modeling technique that uses experimental data to account for the effects of fabrication uncertainties in residual stress and structural dimensions. The presented model predicts the static motion of the stage within an average absolute error of 14.6 μm, which approaches the desired imaging resolution, 5 μm, and also reasonably anticipates the structural dynamic behavior of the stage. The refined model will support development of a future trajectory tracking controller for the system.

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Laser cooling and magnetic trapping of (85)Rb atoms have been performed in extremely strong and tunable magnetic fields, extending these techniques to a new regime and setting the stage for a variety of cold atom and plasma experiments. Using a superconducting Ioffe-Pritchard trap and an optical molasses, 2.4 x 10(7) atoms were laser cooled to the Doppler limit and magnetically trapped at bias fields up to 2.9 T. At magnetic fields up to 6 T, 3 x 10(6) cold atoms were laser cooled in a pulsed loading scheme. These bias fields are well beyond an order of magnitude larger than those in previous experiments. Loading rates, molasses lifetimes, magnetic-trapping times, and temperatures were measured using photoionization and electron detection.

A thin-film piezoelectric microactuator using a novel combination of active vertical translational scanning and passive resonant rotational scanning is presented. Thin-film lead-zirconate-titanate unimorph bending beams surrounding a central platform provide nearly 200-μm displacement at 18 V with bandwidth greater than 200 Hz. Inside the platform, a mirror mount, or mirror surface, supported by silicon dioxide spring beams can be excited to resonance by low-voltage; high-frequency excitation of the outer PZT beams. Over ±5.5° mechanical resonance is obtained at 3.8 kHz and ±2 V. The combination of large translational vertical displacements and high-speed rotational scanning is intended to support real-time cross-sectional imaging in a dual axes confocal endomicroscope.