Atom-chip interferometer
Phys. Rev. A 113, 063325 – Published 23 June, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/vq33-77zc
Abstract
We have realized an interferometer using a thermal cloud of magnetically trapped rubidium-87 atoms on a chip. The interferometer resembles a Ramsey interferometer with a state selective spatial splitting of the two internal states as proposed by [M. Ammar et al., Phys. Rev. A 91, 053623 (2015)]. The splitting is effected by microwave fields from two on-chip waveguides while the atoms remain magnetically trapped. The inferred maximum separation is . We observe interference fringes with a contrast around 8% limited by the velocity difference of the two interferometer states when we close the interferometer. We develop a model describing this contrast decay.
