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A: Atomphysik

A 9: Poster I

A 9.10: Poster

Wednesday, March 6, 2002, 11:00–13:00, Schloss

Magnetic Traps for Ultra Cold Atoms on an Atomchip — •Bastian Engeser, Alexander Kasper, Stephan Schneider, Louw Feenstra, and Jörg Schmiedmayer — Physikalisches Institut, Universität Heidelberg, Philosophenweg 12, 69120 Heidelberg

Ultra cold neutral atoms can be trapped in magnetic fields that are created by simple current carrying wires. Established lithographic techniques allow the miniaturisation of these structures, and thus of the resulting traps and trapping fields, to length scales of the order of the De Broglie wave length of the trapped atoms. In such a system the atoms move inside the magnetic potentials equivalently to the situation of electrons moving in semiconductor structures in mesoscopic quantum electronics.

In our microtraps ground state sizes below 100 nm and trap frequencies of over 1 MHz can be achieved, using structures down to 1 µm. Trapping is also possible using exclusively the fields generated on the chip itself, abolishing the need for further bias fields.

We will present the latest results of our experiment, aimed at realising an integrated atom chip, combining several atom-optical elements such as wave guides and beam splitters.