Cold atoms near a surface

Imperial College, London, UK

11.30am, Wednesday 10 December 2003, EN413, Engineering Building, Swinburne

Recently the preparation of ultra cold atoms and the formation of BEC above a surface have been achieved using 'atom chips'. These atom chips use microfabricated circuitry to create the magnetic potentials required for fast and efficient evaporative cooling. These potentials can also be patterned to realize more complex devices such as atom waveguides, atom conveyer belts and atom interferometers. They have also been proposed as possible realizations for QIP. I will report on recent experiments where BEC has been realized using atom chip technology and on measurements of possible decoherence effects when cold atoms are brought within close proximity of a room temperature surface.

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