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A: Fachverband Atomphysik
A 21: Innovative Traps and Cooling Schemes (jointly with Q)
A 21.8: Talk
Thursday, March 22, 2007, 15:45–16:00, 5D
Optical Storage Ring for Cold Atoms — •Andre Lengwenus1, Jens Kruse1, Michael Volk1, Wolfgang Ertmer2, Matthias Gruber3, Jürgen Jahns3, and Gerhard Birkl1 — 1Institut für Angewandte Physik, Technische Universität Darmstadt, 64289 Darmstadt, Germany — 2Institut für Quantenoptik, Universität Hannover, 30167 Hannover, Germany — 3Lehrgebiet Optische Nachrichtentechnik, FernUniversität Hagen, 58084 Hagen, Germany
Most applications for atom interferometers, e.g. sensors for rotation or acceleration, benefit from long interaction times and large enclosed areas. Both can be achieved, using guided interferometer structures for cold atoms. We experimentally demonstrate a new interferometer-type guiding structure for laser cooled neutral atoms based on a ring-shaped dipole potential. The dipole potential is created by focusing a far red-detuned laser beam by a specially designed micro-fabricated optical structure.
We can load atoms into this miniaturized storage ring and can observe how atoms move along the ring-shaped potential minimum. Illuminating only part of the ring lens with a moveable asymmetrical gaussian laser beam gives us the possibility to create a double well potential with variable barrier height. This enables us to move the atoms around the ring as well as dividing and recombining the atom cloud as required for a guided-atom interferometer.