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APS » Journals » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 98 » Issue 22
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 223002 (2007) [4 pages]

Trapping of Rb Atoms by ac Electric Fields

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Sophie Schlunk1,2,*, Adela Marian1, Peter Geng1, Allard P. Mosk2,†, Gerard Meijer1, and Wieland Schöllkopf1,‡
1Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Faradayweg 4-6, 14195 Berlin, Germany
2FOM-Institute for Plasmaphysics Rijnhuizen, P.O. Box 1207, 3430 BE Nieuwegein, The Netherlands

Received 14 February 2007; published 30 May 2007

We demonstrate trapping of an ultracold gas of neutral atoms in a macroscopic ac electric trap. Three-dimensional confinement is obtained by switching between two saddle-point configurations of the electric field. Stable trapping is observed in a narrow range of switching frequencies around 60 Hz. The dynamic confinement of the atoms is directly visualized at different phases of the ac switching cycle. We observe about 105 Rb atoms in the 1  mm3 large and several microkelvins deep trap with a lifetime of approximately 5 s.

© 2007 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.223002
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.223002
PACS:
32.80.Pj, 32.60.+i, 33.80.Ps, 39.25.+k

*Electronic address: schlunk@fhi-berlin.mpg.de

†Present address: Mesa+ Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands.

‡Electronic address: wschoell@fhi-berlin.mpg.de

 
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