Bose-Einstein condensation on an atom chip

This experiment created and manipulated Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) of 87Rb in magnetic traps formed above current carrying wires on an atom chip. This is done by forming a magnetic optical trap (MOT) of Rb, with ~ 3 × 10⁷ atoms. These are then transferred to the magnetic trap formed by the wires on the chip surface. RF evaporative cooling is then used to cool the atoms below the transition temperature to BEC. With this apparatus, BEC was observed for the first time at UQ on the morning of Friday 20th February 2004 and was the first BEC that was created in Australia.

The experiment is now retired and can be found in the UQ Physics Museum, in the Parnell Building (building 7).

The UQ BEC Atom Chip 
The UQ atom chip for BEC. The chip surface is 125 μm silver foil glued onto a ceramic substrate with epoxy. The silver wires were machined using a CNC mill.
False colour absorption images of the atom cloud after 10 ms of ballistic expansion a) Thermal cloud just above Tc, N=60,000 atoms. (b) Transition to BEC with N=40,000 atoms at Tc=250 nK. (c) Almost pure condensate, N=20,000.