An optical lattice on an atom chip

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the integration of optical lattices with atom chips, enabling advanced quantum manipulation of neutral atoms through combined optical and chip-based trapping techniques.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to create optical lattices directly on an atom chip by retro-reflecting a laser beam off the chip surface, enabling new quantum control capabilities.

Findings

Successful creation of optical lattice on an atom chip.

Cooling of atoms into the two-dimensional regime.

Observation of coherent Bloch oscillations in the lattice.

Abstract

Optical dipole traps and atom chips are two very powerful tools for the quantum manipulation of neutral atoms. We demonstrate that both methods can be combined by creating an optical lattice potential on an atom chip. A red-detuned laser beam is retro-reflected using the atom chip surface as a high-quality mirror, generating a vertical array of purely optical oblate traps. We load thermal atoms from the chip into the lattice and observe cooling into the two-dimensional regime where the thermal energy is smaller than a quantum of transverse excitation. Using a chip-generated Bose-Einstein condensate, we demonstrate coherent Bloch oscillations in the lattice.