Atom chips

Summary form only given. We report on the experimental realisation of traps and guides for neutral atoms on a nanofabricated chip. Our main results are: (a) Trap parameters with a transverse ground state size below 100 nm and frequencies of above 100 kHz (as required by QIP proposals) have been achieved. (b) We could trap and guide atoms exclusively with the fields created on the chip. (c) We have shown that a wide variety of magnetic potentials may be realised, such as quadrupole fields for a MOT, 3D minima for trapping, 2D minima for guiding, and beam splitters. (d) It has been shown that standard nanofabrication techniques and materials may he utilised to build these atom chips. The wires on the surface can stand sufficiently high current densities in vacuum and at room temperature.