Effect of Magnetization Inhomogeneity on Magnetic Microtraps for Atoms

Abstract

We report on the origin of fragmentation of ultracold atoms observed on a permanent magnetic film atom chip. A novel technique is used to characterize small spatial variations of the magnetic field near the film surface using radio frequency spectroscopy of the trapped atoms. Direct observations indicate the fragmentation is due to a corrugation of the magnetic potential caused by long range inhomogeneity in the film magnetization. A model which takes into account two-dimensional variations of the film magnetization is consistent with the observations.

4 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Observation of the Pairing Gap in a Strongly Interacting Fermi Gas
• Condensate splitting in an asymmetric double well for atom chip based sensors
• Transporting, splitting and merging of atomic ensembles in a chip trap
• Creating Ioffe-Pritchard micro-traps from permanent magnetic film with in-plane magnetization

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Spatially Resolved Excitation of Rydberg Atoms and Surface Effects on an Atom Chip
• Spatially inhomogeneous phase evolution of a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate
• A lattice of microtraps for ultracold atoms based on patterned magnetic films
• Optimized magnetic lattices for ultracold atomic ensembles
• Fully permanent magnet atom chip for Bose-Einstein condensation
• Magnetic lattices for ultracold atoms and degenerate quantum gases
• Scanning magnetoresistance microscopy of atom chips