Combined chips for atom-optics

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the integration of large-scale and micron-sized atom chips to manipulate Bose-Einstein condensates with high precision, enabling advanced atom-optics experiments and a magnetic field microscope.

Contribution

It introduces a combined chip architecture that allows close condensate positioning without losses, and demonstrates precise manipulation and a novel magnetic field microscopy application.

Findings

Condensates can be positioned within submicron accuracy.

The combined chip design reduces losses and fragmentation.

A direction sensitive magnetic field microscope is demonstrated.

Abstract

We present experiments with Bose-Einstein condensates on a combined atom chip. The combined structure consists of a large-scale "carrier chip" and smaller "atom-optics chips", containing micron-sized elements. This allows us to work with condensates very close to chip surfaces without suffering from fragmentation or losses due to thermally driven spin flips. Precise three-dimensional positioning and transport with constant trap frequencies are described. Bose-Einstein condensates were manipulated with submicron accuracy above atom-optics chips. As an application of atom chips, a direction sensitive magnetic field microscope is demonstrated.