The research platform for Bose-Einstein condensate in 87 Rb atomic gas,which is composed of a double MOT configuration and a QUIC trap,was reported.The properties of the condensate were measured both in time-of-flight and in tight confinement by the absorption imaging method.The measurements agreed with the criterions of Bose-Einstein condensation phase transition.About 2×10 5 atoms were pure condensed.
XU Zhen ,ZHOU ShuYu,ZHOU ShanYu&WANG YuZhu Key Laboratory for Quantum Optics,Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics,Chinese Academy of Sciences,Shanghai 201800,China
This paper reports an experiment of creating Bose-Einstein condensate （BEC） on an atom chip. The chip-based Z-wire current with a homogeneous bias magnetic field creates a tight magnetic trap, which allows for a fast production of BEC. After a 4.17-s forced radio frequency evaporative cooling, a condensate with about 3000 atoms appears. The transition temperature is about 300 nK. This compact system is quite robust, allowing for versatile extensions and further studying of BEC.
The effects of surface-induced evaporative cooling on an atom chip are investigated. The evolutions of temperature, number and phase-space density of the atom cloud are measured when the atom cloud is brought close to the surface. Rapid decrease of the temperature and number of the atoms is found when the atom-surface distance is 〈 100 ttm. A gain of about a factor of five on the phase-space density is obtained. It is found that the efficiency of the surface-induced evaporative cooling depends on the atom-surface distance and the shape of the evaporative trap. When the atoms are moved very close to the surface, severe heating is observed, which dominates when the holding time is 〉 8 ms. It is important that the surface-induced evaporative cooling offers novel possibilities for the realization of a continuous condensation, where a spatially varying evaporative cooling is required.
We investigate a planar ion chip design with a two-dimensional array of linear ion traps for scalable quantum information processing. Qubits are formed from the internal electronic states of trapped ^40Ca^＋ ions. The segmented electrodes reside in a single plane on a substrate and a grounded metal plate separately, a combination of appropriate rf and DC potentials is applied to them for stable ion confinement. Every two adjacent electrodes can generate a linear ion trap in and between the electrodes above the chip at a distance dependent on the geometrical scale and other considerations. The potential distributions are calculated by using a static electric field qualitatively. This architecture provides a conceptually simple avenue to achieving the microfabrication and large-scale quantum computation based on the arrays of trapped ions.
Eigenface method used in face recognition is introduced to reduce the pattern of interference fringes appearing in the absorption image of cold rubidium atom cloud trapped by an atom chip. The standard method for processing the absorption image is proposed, and the origin of the interference fringes is analyzed. Compared with the standard processing method which uses only one reference image, we take advantage of fifty reference images and reconstruct a new reference image which is more similar to the absorption image than all of the fifty original reference images. Then obvious reduction of interference fringes can be obtained.
Chip-based atom interferometers bring together the advantages of atom chips and Bose-Einstein condensates. Their central prerequisite is that a condensate can be coherently split into two halves with a determined relative phase. This paper demonstrates the dynamical splitting and merging of an atom cloud with two U-wires on an atom chip. Symmetrical and asymmetrical splittings are realized by applying a bias field with different directions and magnitudes. The trajectories of the splitting are consistent with theoretical calculations. The atom chip is a good candidate for constructing an atom interferometer.
