Design and prototyping of Stark atom chip for electric trapping of laser-cooled atoms

An electric trapping of laser-cooled neutral strontium (Sr) atoms on a chip with micro-electrodes has been successful. The device is called “Stark atom chip” since it makes use of Stark effects on neutral atoms in electric fields. In this paper, our design and prototyping of the Stark atom chip with high aspect ratio electrodes precisely built on a surface are described. The functional requirements of the chip are specified during the discussion of designing the device. The authors design a novel process for fabrication of high aspect ratio electrodes. A focused ion beam (FIB) is used for precision fabrication of the prototype.