München 2004 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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Q: Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 44: Gruppenberichte Quantengase
Q 44.2: Gruppenbericht
Donnerstag, 25. März 2004, 17:00–17:30, HS 225
Coherent matter waves near surfaces — •Peter Krüger1, Stephan Wildermuth1, Sebastian Hofferberth1, Mauritz Andersson1, Sönke Groth1,2, Elmar Haller1, Leonardo Della Pietra1, Mihael Brajdic1, Israel Bar-Joseph2, and Jörg Schmiedmayer1 — 1Physikalisches Institut, Universität Heidelberg, 69120 Heidelberg — 2Weizmann Institut, Rehovot, Israel
Surface mounted current and charge carrying structures can be used to tailor a great variety of different micro-potentials for neutral atoms. In analogy to electronic chips, atom chips for the controlled manipulation of matter waves can be formed. At this stage, a number of atom-optical tools, such as traps, guides, and beam splitters have been developed and tested in the laboratory, and experiments in different fields of physics have become possible.
Here, we report on our investigations with Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) and ultracold thermal atoms just above the critical condensation temperature. Surface disorder potentials are studied with atoms that are separated from a conductor surface by tens of microns down to a few microns. We will present results for stationary traps as well as matter wave guides in which the atoms are transported in a controlled way. The extreme sensitivity of dilute BECs to any potential roughness allows to characterize the surface potential with high precision. From our experiments, the high demands on the chip fabrication become apparent and the possibilities for coherent manipulation of matter waves can be judged. This is of particular relevance for the implementation of elementary quantum processors on atom chips.