An atom mirror etched from a hard drive

Quantum fluctuations of the vacuum are both a surprising and fundamental phenomenon of nature. Understood as virtual photons flitting in and out of existence, they still have a very real impact, \emph{e.g.}, in the Casimir effects and the lifetimes of atoms. Engineering vacuum fluctuations is therefore becoming increasingly important to emerging technologies. Here, we shape vacuum fluctuations using a "mirror", creating regions in space where they are suppressed. As we then e...

We fabricate a miniature spherical mirror for tightly focusing an optical dipole trap for neutral atoms. The mirror formation process is modelled to predict the dimensions for particular fabrication parameters. We integrate the spherical mirror with a neutral atom experiment to trap and detect a single atom with high efficiency. The mirror serves the dual purpose of focusing the dipole trap as well as collection of the atomic fluorescence into an optical fibre.

It has recently been shown that optical reflection gratings fabricated directly into an atom chip provide a simple and effective way to trap and cool substantial clouds of atoms [1,2]. In this article we describe how the gratings are designed and micro-fabricated and we characterise their optical properties, which determine their effectiveness as a cold atom source. We use simple scalar diffraction theory to understand how the morphology of the gratings determines the power i...

We introduce a new direction in the field of atom optics, atom interferometry, and neutral-atom quantum information processing. It is based on the use of microfabricated optical elements. With these elements versatile and integrated atom optical devices can be created in a compact fashion. This approach opens the possibility to scale, parallelize, and miniaturize atom optics for new investigations in fundamental research and application. It will lead to new, compact sources o...

We present a two-dimensional (2D) photonic crystal system for interacting with cold cesium (Cs) atoms. The band structures of the 2D photonic crystals are predicted to produce unconventional atom-light interaction behaviors, including anisotropic emission, suppressed spontaneous decay and photon mediated atom-atom interactions controlled by the position of the atomic array relative to the photonic crystal. An optical conveyor technique is presented for continuously loading at...

An optical microtrap is realized on a dielectric surface by crossing a tightly focused laser beam with an horizontal evanescent-wave atom mirror. The nondissipative trap is loaded with $\sim$$10^5$ cesium atoms through elastic collisions from a cold reservoir provided by a large-volume optical surface trap. With an observed 300-fold local increase of the atomic number density approaching $10^{14}{\rm cm}^{-3}$, unprecedented conditions of cold atoms close to a surface are rea...

We explain why a system of cold $^{85}Rb$ atoms at temperatures of the order $T\approx 7.78\times 10^{-5}$ K and below, but not too low to lie in the quantum reflection regime, should be automatically repelled from the surface of a conductor without the need of an evanescent field, as in a typical atom mirror, to counteract the van der Waals attraction. The repulsive potential arises naturally outside the conductor and is effective at distances from the conductor surface of a...

We have integrated magneto-optical traps (MOTs) into an atom chip by etching pyramids into a silicon wafer. These have been used to trap atoms on the chip, directly from a room temperature vapor of rubidium. This new atom trapping method provides a simple way to integrate several atom sources on the same chip. It represents a substantial advance in atom chip technology and offers new possibilities for atom chip applications such as integrated single atom or photon sources and...

Hybrid quantum devices, incorporating both atoms and photons, can exploit the benefits of both to enable scalable architectures for quantum computing and quantum communication, as well as chip-scale sensors and single-photon sources. Production of such devices depends on the development of an interface between their atomic and photonic components. This should be compact, robust and compatible with existing technologies from both fields. Here we demonstrate such an interface. ...

We propose a theoretical scheme for atomic cooling, i.e. the compression of both velocity and position distribution of particles in motion. This is achieved by collisions of the particles with a combination of a moving atomic mirror and a moving atom diode. An atom diode is a unidirectional barrier, i.e. an optical device through which an atom can pass in one direction only. We show that the efficiency of the scheme depends on the trajectory of the diode and the mirror. We ex...