Eric A Cornell | PubMed Health

PubMed2005

Atom Michelson interferometer on a chip using a Bose-Einstein condensate.

An atom Michelson interferometer is implemented on an "atom chip." The chip uses lithographically patterned conductors and external magnetic fields to produce and guide a Bose-Einstein condensate. Splitting, reflecting, and recombining of condensate atoms are achieved by a standing-wave light field having a wave vector aligned along the atom waveguide. A differential phase shift between the two arms of the interferometer is introduced by either a magnetic-field gradient or with an initial condensate velocity. Interference contrast is still observable at 20% with an atom propagation time of 10 ms.

Journal Article↗

PubMed2002

Bose-Einstein condensation in a dilute gas: the first 70 years and some recent experiments (Nobel Lecture).

Bose-Einstein condensates of dilute gases offer a rich field to study fundamental quantum-mechanical processes, manipulation of the speed at which light propogates, observation of atomic pair-formation and superfluidity, or even simulating white dwarf stars. Still more radical applications are on the horizon. However, their initial creation was a masterpiece of experimental physics. After an initial process of laser cooling (which itself won its developers the 1997 Nobel Prize), atoms in a magnetic-optical trap must be safely transferred into a purely magnetic trap, where the condensation process begins at 170 nK and 20 nK a pure condensate of 2000 atoms could be created. More astonishingly, Wieman and Cornell showed these low temperatures could be achieved in "bench scale" equipment rather than the massive pieces normally demanded by cryoscience. For their 1995 discovery of this new state of matter, they were awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Chemistry, Physical↗