Novel techniques for portable cold atom experiments

Activity: Talk or presentation types › Invited talk

Description

The drive to miniaturise atom-based metrological devices is an important area in modern research. I will report on our progress towards realising such a portable setup with three main results: a) a method of determining vacuum pressure using cold atoms, removing the need for a standard vacuum gauge [1], b) the creation of a portable magneto-optical trap which we have used to demonstrate cold atom physics at public events across Scotland, and c) the development of computer generated holographic techniques for the production of highly flexible and multi-wavelength optical traps [2] with a simple apparatus. Furthermore I will demonstrate the applicability of these holographic traps for two experiments: ring traps for rotation sensing [3] and the creation of a cold atom device that can be used as an investigation of the topological Kondo effect [4].

[1] R. W. G. Moore et al., Rev. Sci. Instrum. 86, 093108 (2015).
[2] D. Bowman et al., Opt. Express 23, 8365 (2015).
[3] G. D. Bruce et al., Phys. Scr. T143, 014008 (2011).
[4] F. Buccheri et al., arXiv:1511.06574 (2015).
Period11 Feb 2016
Held atUniversity of Oxford, United Kingdom

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