Atom chips

Abstract

The traps and guides for neutral atoms on a nano-fabricated chip are investigated. The chip is made of a 2.5 μm gold layer placed on a GaAs substrate, the patterns are created by standard nanofabrication processes. Results show that the trap parameters with a transverse ground state size below 100 nm and frequencies of above 100 kHz are achieved. Atoms can be trapped and guided exclusively with the fields created on the chip. It is shown that a wide variety of magnetic potentials may be realized.