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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 32: Materiewellenoptik

Q 32.2: Talk

Wednesday, March 4, 2009, 14:15–14:30, Audi-B

BEC and guided atom-optics in dipole potentials — •Oliver Wille, Johannes Küber, Thomas Lauber, and Gerhard Birkl — Institut für Angewandte Physik, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Schlossgartenstraße 7, 64289 Darmstadt

In our ATOMICS (ATom Optics with MICro Structures) experiment, we achieved BEC by loading Rb-atoms directly from a magneto-optical trap into a crossed dipole trap created by a 1070nm fiber laser and evaporatively cool to quantum degeneracy by lowering the power of the two trapping beams. The fully optical setup has the advantage of being independent of the magnetic properties of the atoms and allows to impose arbitrary magnetic fields.

We want to study the coherence properties of a BEC in dipole potentials created by microfabricated optical elements illuminated with a red detuned laser field. Micro-optical elements are available in various shapes including micro lens arrays, cylindrical lens arrays and ring shaped lenses. With these micro lenses it is possible to build waveguides, beam splitters or toroidal trapping potentials. With coherent transport and splitting of a wave packet it is possible to create integrated atom interferometers and even more complex configurations.

As a second line of experiments, we plan to investigate the dynamics of matter waves in different 1D potential geometries including spatially limited optical lattices and Fabry-Perot like structures.