Microchip ring trap for cold atoms or molecules
AssigneeThe United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Air Force
InventorsMatthew Crookston, Michael Robinson, Paul Baker
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A microchip ring trap for cold atoms or neutral molecules consists of a particular multi-layer layout of wires on a microchip. These conductive wires may be produced by photolithography on a substrate (e.g. gold on sapphire). There are four wires crucial to the design, essentially a pair of “two-wire waveguides”. These wires are laid out on concentric circles with the inner and outer most wires on lower level of the chip, and the middle pair of wires on the top layer (the chip surface).
Claims6
A microchip ring trap for cold neutral atom and molecules comprising:
- a microchip which has a substrate with a top chip face;
- current carrying wires to produce an atom waveguide for cold atoms and molecules in a path over the top chip face of the microchip;
- a first two-wire circular interior waveguide on the chip which creates a first ring wave guide above the chip;
- a second two wire circular exterior waveguide within the microchip which forms a second circle that is concentric and spatially coincidental and overlapped with the first ring wave guide;
- and
- a means for providing a current to the first and second two-wire waveguides so that they operate as a ring trap for cold atoms and molecules in the atom waveguide.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.