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Realization of a superconducting atom chip

Thomas Nirrengarten, Angie Qarry, Cédric Roux, Andreas Emmert, Gilles Nogues, Michel Brune, Jean-Michel Raimond, Serge Haroche

quant-pharXiv:quant-ph/0610019

Abstract

We have trapped rubidium atoms in the magnetic field produced by a superconducting atom chip operated at liquid Helium temperatures. Up to 8.2· 105 atoms are held in a Ioffe-Pritchard trap at a distance of 440 μm from the chip surface, with a temperature of 40 μK. The trap lifetime reaches 115 s at low atomic densities. These results open the way to the exploration of atom--surface interactions and coherent atomic transport in a superconducting environment, whose properties are radically different from normal metals at room temperature.

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