Quantum Reflection of Bose-Einstein CondensatesbyThomas A. Pasquini
B.A. Physics
Dartmouth College, 2000
Submitted to the Department of Physics
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree ofDoctor of Philosophy in Physics
at theMASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGYSEPTEMBER 2007
c Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2007. All rights reserved.

Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Department of Physics
August 21, 2007

Certified by . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Wolfgang Ketterle
John D. MacAurthur Professor of Physics
Thesis Supervisor
Certified by . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
David E. Pritchard
Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics
Thesis Supervisor

Accepted by . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Thomas J. Greytak
Professor of Physics, Associate Department Head for Education

2

Quantum Reflection of Bose-Einstein CondensatesbyThomas A. Pasquini
Submitted to the Department of Physics
on August 21, 2007, in partial fulfillment of therequirements for the degree ofDoctor of Philosophy in Physics

Abstract
Recent developments in atom optics have brought Bose-Einstein condensates within 1 µm
of solid surfaces where the atom-surface interactions can no longer be ignored. At longrange, the atom-surface interaction is described by the weakly attractive Casimir-Polder
potential which is classically predicted to accelerate an incident atom toward the surface
where it will interact strongly with the internal modes of the surface, lose energy, and land
in a bound state of the surface. When the incident atom is very cold, on the order of a few
nanokelvin, however, the acceleration of the atomic wavefunction is so abrupt that the atom
may partially reflect from the attractive tail in a process known as quantum reflection.
This work presents experimental evidence for quantum reflection from a solid surface atnormal incidence. Using atoms from a 23 Na BEC, cooled to a few nanokelvin in a recently
demonstrated single-coil trap, controlled collisions were induced between atoms and solid
silicon surface. A maximum reflection probability of ∼ 12% was observed for an incident
velocity of 1 mm/s. Atoms confined against the surface at low density exhibited an enhanced
lifetime due to quantum reflection.
A surprising aspect of quantum reflection is that nano-structured surfaces are predicted
to exhibit enhanced quantum reflection due to the reduction of the atom-surface interaction
from reduced density surfaces. Using a pillared surface with an density reduced to 1% ofbulk density, we observe an enhancement of the reflection probability to ∼ 60%.
At velocities from 2-25 mm/s, predicted threshold dependence of the reflection probability was observed. At velocities below 2 mm/s, the reflection probability was observed tosaturate. We develop a simple model which predicts the saturation as a result of mean-fieldinteractions between atoms in the incident Bose-Einstein condensate.
Thesis Supervisor: Wolfgang Ketterle
Title: John D. MacAurthur Professor of Physics
Thesis Supervisor: David E. Pritchard
Title: Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics

For the parents in my life,
Sharon and Tom,Ann and Monty,
and Elisabeth.

Acknowledgments
In 2002, I searched for a graduate research advisor who was excited about the “tabletop”
research they were doing and who smiled in their photographs. With Dave and Wolfgang,
I found excitement and smiles twice over. I thank them for the opportunity to explore
and experiment in their lab for the last five years and for their support and encouragement
throughout my time at MIT.
Help exploring was never in short supply in the Science Chamber, and I have benefitted
from group members who have moved on and those who will remain. My work here has
been eased along by patience and understanding of graduate students Aaron and Yong, who
nurtured my development on the apparatus, driven forward by the insights of post-docs
Dave and Michele, and “boosted” by diploma students Andre, Christian, and Sebastian.
Visitors to the group Won-Ho and Carsten have also contributed to the lab. Thank you forpaving the way for this work. In recent years, we have all benefited greatly from the quiet
diligence of Gyu-Boong, the gung-ho attitude of Caleb, the probing questions of Tony andthe exuberance of Ye-Ryoung and Jae. Thank you for making the last years so productive
and good luck in the years to come.
The work of the Science Chamber is not limited to the members of BEC III. Up anddown the building 26 hallway, collaborators in the Ketterle/Pritchard group and the Vuletic
group too numerous to thank by name have left their mark on the experiments of the last
5 years. More recently, members of BEC I and BEC II, particularly Christian, Andre,
Yong, Dan, and Jit Kee, have provided guidance and expertise in the rebuilding the Science
Chamber to work with fermionic lithium. Beyond the halls of MIT, I have benefitted fromdiscussions with Jim Babb and Robin Scott whose understanding of atom-surface potentials
and BEC interactions have helped to grow and shape my own.
Five years at MIT has shown me that even a competitive atmosphere can give rise to
great friendships. I was fortunate, in my first years at MIT, to work with Jamil, Kendra,
Julia, and Cort (and so many others) in an effort to secure health care funding for graduate
students. That year I also fell in with Molly and Tim and Will and Sarah Jane who haveremained close to my family throughout our time in Boston. Within the lab, there are too
many friends to recognize individually. Four colleagues in particular, have been support intimes of stress and joyful in times of success; thank you Micah, Gretchen, Jit Kee, and Dan
for your friendship. Finally, the families at Westgate have made the last 6 months very
special for my growing family; you are one of the greatest parts of MIT.
Parents, to whom I have dedicated this work, have supported and encouraged me as I
worked toward this degree. Tom and Sharon, my parents, believed in me and pushed me to
do my best work throughout graduate school; thank you for your unswerving faith in me.
Monty and Ann, my parents-in-law, are my family in Boston and have always opened theirhome to me, particularly following the birth of my children; thank you for all your support.
Most importantly, my wife Elisabeth, now a parent herself, has carried me through themany challenges of MIT. I owe her so much, and I hope that the journey we begin now is
the right path for our family.

8

Contents
1 Introduction: Nanokelvin Atoms and Surfaces

17

1.1

Phase transitions for dilute gases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

18

1.2

Atoms near surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

20

1.2.1

The atom-atom interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

21

1.2.2

The atom-surface interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

24

1.3

BEC III research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

26

1.4

Outline of thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

26

2 The Science Chamber Apparatus
2.1

2.2

2.3

29

Apparatus overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.1.1

23 Na

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

30

2.1.2

Vacuum system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

31

2.1.3

Cooling atoms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

32

2.1.4

Magnetic and optical trapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

34

2.1.5

Generation of light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

36

2.1.6

Imaging atoms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

38

2.1.7

The science chamber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

39

The single-coil trap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

41

2.2.1

Single-loop trap geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

42

2.2.2

Sensitivity of the single-coil trap to external fields . . . . . . . . . .

48

2.2.3

Experimental single-coil trap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

50

2.2.4

Further applications of the single-coil trap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

53

Modifications for dual species work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

53

2.3.1

Multi-species oven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

54

2.3.2

Lithium laser table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

54

2.3.3

Large bias-field generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

57

3 Quantum Reflection Theory
3.1

29

63

Quantum scattering from a 1-D potential . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9

64

3.2

3.1.1

Barrier scattering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

65

3.1.2

Threshold behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

67

3.1.3

Numeric solutions for quantum reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

67

3.1.4

The badlands function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

67

Reflection of cold atoms from a solid surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

69

4 Normal Incidence Quantum Reflection

73

4.1

Previous work on quantum reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

73

4.2

History of quantum reflection experiments at MIT . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

75

4.3

Reflection at normal incidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

78

4.4

Experimental results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

79

4.4.1

Reflection probability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

80

4.4.2

Quantum reflection surface trap80

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5 Structured Potentials for Quantum Reflection
5.1

5.2

5.3

83

Candidates for improved reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

84

5.1.1

Silica aerogels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

84

5.1.2

Periodically pillared surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

85

5.1.3

Laser ablated surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

87

5.1.4

Carbon films . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

87

5.1.5

Piezo-modulated silicon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

87

What potential does an atom see? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

88

5.2.1

Models of the pillared surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

88

5.2.2

Spurious interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

93

Experimental results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

94

5.3.1

95

Reflection probability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

6 Interaction Effects in Quantum Reflection

97

6.1

The failure of simple models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

97

6.2

An improved model for mean-field effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

98

6.3

Experimental results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

100

6.3.1

Reflection probability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

100

6.3.2

Excitations during reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

101

7 Conclusion
7.1

105

Applications of quantum reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

105

7.1.1

Focusing atomic beams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

105

7.1.2

Trapping of ultracold atoms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

106

7.1.3

Fundamental condensate physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

107

10

7.2

The future of the Science Chamber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

107

A Cooling Bose-Einstein condensates below 500 picokelvin

109

B Quantum reflection from a solid surface at normal incidence

113

C Low velocity quantum reflection of Bose-Einstein condensates

119

D Pillared surface Mathematica code

125

E Technical drawings

131

11

12

List of Figures
1-1 Cartoon of BEC formation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

18

1-2 Atom-surface interaction potential . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

20

1-3 Mode cutoff for atom-atom interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

22

1-4 Cartoon explanation of atom-surface interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

25

2-1 Energy levels and transitions in 23 Na . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

30

2-2 Science Chamber vacuum system and experiment table . . . . . . . . . . . .

32

2-3 Zeeman slowing cartoon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

33

2-4 The magneto-optical trap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

34

2-5 Science Chamber main-chamber magnetic trap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

35

2-6 Science Chamber laser tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

37

2-7 Science Chamber lab temperature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

38

2-8 Images of BEC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

39

2-9 Acceleration problems with linear motion feedthrough . . . . . . . . . . . .

40

2-10 Single-loop vertical trapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

43

2-11 Single-loop geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

44

2-12 Single-loop in “bias-free” regime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

46

2-13 Single-loop with anti-bias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

47

2-14 Comparison of single-loop and coil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

47

2-15 Li lab compensation coil setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

49

2-16 Experimental single-coil winding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

50

2-17 Single-loop trap depth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

51

2-18 Trap depth in the “bias-free” regime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

52

2-19 The lithium laser table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

55

2-20 Schematic of MOT control box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

60

2-21 Proposed wiring of the magnetic trap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

61

3-1 Classical and quantum turning points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

64

3-2 Quantum treatment of barriers and steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

66

3-3 Numerical solution to the Schrödinger equation for quantum reflection . . .

68

13

3-4 Theoretical quantum reflection probability vs. velocity . . . . . . . . . . . .

70

4-1 First experimental signature of normal incidence quantum reflection . . . .

76

4-2 Normal incidence quantum reflection experiment photos . . . . . . . . . . .

77

4-3 Schematic for quantum reflection experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

78

4-4 Reflection probability vs. incident velocity.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

80

4-5 Lifetime in the atom surface trap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

81

5-1 Aerogel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

85

5-2 Periodically pillared surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

86

5-3 Line potentials above the pillared surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

91

5-4 Comparison of the reflection probability for three models of the pillared surface 92
5-5 Reflection probability vs. incident velocity.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

95

6-1 Quadrature velocity model of low velocity quantum reflection . . . . . . . .

98

6-2 Mean-field model for quantum reflection of condensates . . . . . . . . . . .

99

6-3 Reflection probability vs. incident velocity.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

101

6-4 Menagerie of reflection excitations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

102

14

List of Tables
2.1

23 Na physical properties. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

31

2.2

Comparison of various trap parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

53

2.3

Fields generated by magnetic trap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

58

15

16

Chapter 1

Introduction: Nanokelvin Atoms
and Surfaces
In the early 1800’s, Cambridge, through the entrepreneurship of William and Frederic Tudor, became a major center for cold atom technology [188]. Although mechanical refrigeration techniques involving vapor compression and expansion were being developed at thetime, the dominant source of “cooling” was an environmental reservoir, specifically thefrozen layers atop small, bodies of fresh water like Fresh Pond and Walden Pond. Blocksof ice from these ponds were harvested in the winter, stored, and shipped as far as India
as the ice trade flourished in the century or so following its inception. Today, Cambridge
continues as a center for low temperature science and technology. The Center for Ultracold
Atoms at MIT and Harvard boasts one of the largest consortiums of scientists working attemperatures below 1 µK, a regime non-existent in nature. While no new economy has
yet sprung up around ultracold atoms, the techniques developed here are part of a rapidly
expanding field that promises to revolutionize precision measurements [82], offer new insight into condensed matter systems [61, 196], realize new materials [4, 102] and allow theprocessing and storage of quantum information [17].
The scientific community’s fascination with low temperatures stems from a desire to
see what lies beyond the limits of ordinary human experience. There are phenomena, like
Bose-Einstein condensation, that could never be observed without years of pre-planningand sophisticated apparatus [88, 32]. There is also simplicity in the well controlled, isolated
system; the physics uncovered at low temperatures is ubiquitous, but obscured by the
relatively high temperatures encountered daily. Moving to the bottom of the energy scale
allows scientists to understand natural phenomena from the ground up rather than attempt
to de convolve the myriad factors which underlie them.
The main experimental achievement of this thesis, quantum reflection, involves thequestion of what happens when atoms strike a solid surface. Will the collision be elastic
17

High T

T=0

Figure 1-1: At high temperatures, atoms sparsely occupy the energy levels of a system, as
shown in the left panel. In the zero temperature limit (right panel), bosonic atoms “pileup” in the ground state of the systems forming a Bose-Einstein condensate.

or inelastic? Will the atom reflect from the surface at all, or will it stick? The wonderof working with ultracold atoms is that even mundane questions such as these can havesurprising answers that help us to understand the world around us.
This Chapter motivates the work of the thesis and provides some background in thephysics of Bose-Einstein condensates and surface potentials.

1.1

Phase transitions for dilute gases

A Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) is the macroscopic occupation of the ground state of asystem. A fair understanding of BEC is reached through a simplified 1D system: a harmonic
oscillator potential with frequency ω containing N non-interacting, identical bosons andcomprising an infinite number of evenly spaced energy levels Ej = jh̄ω. At a temperature
T , energy levels with Ej ≤ kB T , where kB is the Boltzmann constant, are classicallyaccessible to each of the bosons. At high T , kB T /h̄ω ≫ N , and the probability of any one

state being occupied is small. But as T is reduced, the bosons are restricted to fewer energy

levels. When the number of accessible levels is less than N , the occupation of the groundstate becomes larger than unity and the bosons in this ground state are referred to as theBose-Einstein condensate.
A model 3D harmonic oscillator potential and rigorous accounting for the occupation ofenergy levels gives a transition temperature, Tc , for the onset of BEC as
kB Tc = h̄ω̄



N
ζ(3)

1/3

(1.1)

where ζ(3) ≈ 1.202 and ω̄ = (ωx ωy ωz )1/3 is the geometric mean of the trap frequencies.
In our magnetic trap (discussed in Section 2.1.4), ω̄ ∼ 2π × 100 Hz and N ∼ 107 , giving
18

Tc ∼ 1 µK. The peak density of atoms is typically 1015 cm−3 , far below the density ofair (n ∼ 1020 cm3 ). This low density is extremely important: higher densities would
give significantly higher transition temperatures, but the 3-body collision rates which allow
molecules to form would lead to significant trap loss, preventing the BEC transition.
Even at the low densities in our traps, the long-range atom-atom interactions play a significant role in condensate behavior, e.g. collisions are responsible for the re-thermalizationof the cloud during evaporative cooling. Interactions are accounted for by including a termin the Schrödinger equation characterizing an atom’s interaction with all other atoms in
the trap. In the simplest case, only the lowest energy, s-wave collisions are considered byincluding a potential V (r) = 4πh̄2 a/m × n(r), where the parameter a = 2.75 nm is thescattering length and n(r) is the local density. This introduces a density dependent term

into the Hamiltonian and generates the Gross-Pitaevskii equation (GPE) [63, 138]h̄2 2
4πh̄2 a−∇ + Vtrap (r) +n(r) ψ(r) = µψ(r)
2m
m
!

(1.2)

where Vtrap is the external potential and µ is the chemical potential which generates the
temporal evolution of the condensate wavefunction Ψ(r, t) = ψ(r)e−i(µ/h̄)t . The density
dependent term, while small, will dominate the kinetic contribution to the total energy
3 > E
when Einteraction ∝ 4πh̄2 a/m × N × N/lho
kinetic ∝ N h̄ω̄ where lho =ph̄/mω̄ isthe trap length. This is the Thomas-Fermi limit in which most of our experiments are
performed [35, 136].
The most prominent effect of the inclusion of this atom-atom interaction energy is thespatial expansion of the ground state wave function with increasing condensate number. In
the absence of interactions, condensing atoms which “pile up” in the ground state are allenergetically confined to the same limited region of space near the trap center and the sizeof the condensate is independent of the number of atoms. With atom-atom interactions,however, the size of the condensate grows with N as the collisions between atoms act
to “push” the atoms up the sides of the trap. In the Thomas-Fermi limit, the spatial
derivative term is dropped from the GPE resulting in definitions for the chemical potential
and condensate radius, RTF :1aµ = h̄ω̄ 15N2lho

RTF,i =

2µ
mωi2

2/5

!1/2

(1.3)

(1.4)

for atoms in a 3D harmonic trap.
For a full, easy-to-read treatment of fundamental condensate physics, I recommend thereview paper by Pitaevskii and Stringari [35] or the book by Pethick and Smith [136].
19

Potential
0

0

1
2
3
Distance from Surface (micron)4

Figure 1-2: The atom-surface interaction is short range repulsive and long range attractive.
In general, the potential minimum supports many bound atomic states.

1.2

Atoms near surfaces

The interaction between atoms and surfaces is typically long-range attractive and shortrange repulsive, as sketched in Figure 1-2. The repulsive interaction is Coulomb repulsionthat onsets when the electron clouds of the incident atom begin to overlap with those of thesurface. The long-range attractive interaction, known in various regimes as the London-van
der Waals [106], Casimir-Polder [23], of Lifshitz force [103, 117] originates in the fluctuating
dipole moment of atoms and is a theoretical challenge that, even today, attracts continued
study [6]. Part of what makes the interaction so intriguing is that, classically, it shouldn’t
exist at all; the energy needed to create an atomic dipole moment exceeds the energy thatcan be gained from the interactions of that dipole moment with another atom or a surface.
Only when the atom is considered quantum mechanically do fluctuations in the atomic
ground state necessitate a fluctuating dipole moment and insure that atoms interact atgreat distances [174].
The atom-surface interaction is mediated by the electromagnetic field. Accounting forthe various frequency dependencies of atoms and surfaces, correlations between the atoms
and surfaces, and the quantum and thermal fluctuations of the electromagnetic field isdifficult, and the general theory developed by Lifshitz leads to expressions likeVsurf (d) = −×∞
kB T α0 (ε0 − 1) KT X−
αξ 3
4d3 (ε0 + 1)
c3 n=1 n

Z ∞
1

" p

2pξn d ( ε1 − 1 + p2 − p)
p
exp −
c
( ε1 − 1 + p2 + p)
20

(1.5)

p

( ε1 − 1 + p2 − pε)+ (1 − 2p ) p( ε1 − 1 + p2 + pε)
2

#!

dp

Fortunately, these expressions simplify to more wieldy expressions, like VC−P (d) = C4 /d4 ,as long as we are only concerned with interactions on a particular length scale. Here, theC4 coefficient encompasses all of the relevant information about the surface in question andcertain assumptions have been made about the atomic structure. Ab initio calculationsof the C4 coefficient are difficult, requiring precise knowledge of the frequency dependent
terms in the atomic polarizability and the dielectric function of the wall, but have been
done for many alkali species on a range of conducting and dielectric surfaces [175, 192, 91,
112, 38, 111, 55].
There is a more illuminating, if less rigorous, path to understanding atom-surface interactions. The system of choice for an atomic physicist is the isolated atom; the isolated
alkali atom is ideal for its simple optical structure, dominated by the behavior of the valence
electron. The presence of other atoms is accounted for as a perturbation to the single-atom
picture, as was done above in Section 1.1. Atom-atom interactions are also responsible forthe atom-surface interactions when the surface is understood to be a high-density collectionof atoms: intuitively, any surface can be broken down into its constituent atoms whichinteract with the atom in free space. These interactions are summed to give the atom surface interaction [118]. This treatment, best detailed in Ref. [174], is complimentary to therigorous quantum electrodynamical treatment of Refs. [103, 138, 117].

1.2.1

The atom-atom interaction

Electromagnetic forces dominate the inter-atomic and intra-atomic interactions. At shortranges, on the order of the Bohr radius a0 , as in solids or molecules, the response of theelectron wavefunction to the nuclear Coulomb potential determines the behavior of thecomposite material [9]. At large distances and low energies, as in Bose condensed atomic
gases, the pure Coulombic potential (∝ 1/r) is absent; neutral atoms have no net charge and,to first order, we expect no interaction when the distances separating the atoms becomeslarge relative to a0 . For neutral atoms, the dominant term in the electric field is the dipoleterm:
E(r) =

1 (3p · r̂)r̂ − p
4πε0
|r|3

(1.6)

where p is the dipole moment of the atom.
For two isolated dipole moments, there is an energy associated with the relative orientation of the dipoles, specifically, Vdipole−dipole (r) = (1/4πε0 )(p1 p2 − 3(p1 · r̂(p2 · r̂))/r 3 . It is
worth noting that atoms do not have permanent electric dipole moments, that is, hpi = 0.

Eigenstates of the atomic Hamiltonian are also eigenstates of the parity operator [31]. Some21

l=r/4l=2r

l=10r
Figure 1-3: For EM modes with λ = c/ω much smaller than the separation of two atoms,
we expect that the driven-dipole fluctuations will be uncorrelated, except in the particularcase when only one mode of the field is occupied, as in a laser field. For EM modes with
λ larger than the separation of two atoms, however, the field does not change appreciably
between the two atoms, and the fluctuations will be strongly correlated. These correlations
survive time averaging, and so we expect an interaction between fluctuating neutral atoms
as a result.

perturbation, typically in the form of an electric field, must be present to mix states of definite parity, allowing the dipole operator, p = ez, which is parity odd, to take a non-zerovalue1 . Therefore, while the average interaction between two atoms is zero, in the presenceof fluctuations, there may be higher order terms that survive the temporal averaging.
Fluctuations of the electromagnetic field, either due to the zero-point energy of thevacuum or to thermal fluctuations, play a critical role in the interactions of neutral atoms;
any occupied mode of the electromagnetic field will drive dipole fluctuations in atoms. The
magnitude of the potential experienced by dipole p1 due to the field of fluctuating dipole
p2 can be approximated as
V (x1 , x2 , t) =Z ∞0p1 (ω, t)E2→1 (ω, t)N (ω)dω(1.7)

where E2→1 is the field of dipole p2 at x1 and N (ω) is the density of modes of the electromagnetic field as a function of frequency, ω. Not all modes of the fluctuating field are
relevant to this integral, as discussed in Figure 1-3. Specifically, only modes with wavelength λ = c/ω > x2 − x1 will contribute to the integral because the electric field is nearly

the same at x1 and x2 . Since shorter wavelengths interfere destructively, the integral canbe effectively cut off at ω = c/r.

The response of a neutral atom to an oscillating electric field is, approximately, for the1

There may be states of opposite parity that are degenerate or very nearly degenerate, as in the 2s andone of the 2p states of hydrogen. This degeneracy is only broken as result of zero-point fluctuations of theelectromagnetic field which give rise to the Lamb shift.

22

center of the electron wavefunction to be displaced slightly from the nucleus. As long as
the fields are not too strong, the electron can be likened to a mass on a spring; the induced
dipole moment is proportional to the applied electric field p = α(ω)E. The polarizability,α(ω), characterizes the response of an atom with ground state |gi and excited states |kiand to an applied electromagnetic field at frequency ω, such that:α(ω) =

2e2 X ωkg |hk|z|gi|2
2 − ω2
h̄ k
ωkg

(1.8)

where Ek − Eg = h̄ωkg is the energy difference between the various excited states. For an

atom with a dominant transition ω0 , this expression simplifies to:α(ω) =e2
12
m ω0 − ω 2(1.9)

where we have made use of the Thomas-Reiche-Kuhn summation rule to set the oscillator
strength for transition ω0 equal to 1. Obviously, this result breaks down very close toresonance as we have ignored radiative damping in our treatment of the atomic oscillator.
At large distances, the radiation field of a driven dipole moment p2 goes, approximately
as E2→1 = p̈2 /c2 r = α(ω)E(x2 )ω 2 /c2 r. Since the time averaged field at x2 is the same as
at x1 , Equation 1.7 simplifies toV (x1 , x2 ) =

Z c/r
0

ω4
α1 (ω)α2 (ω)|E(ω)|2 5 dω
c r

(1.10)

where the usual substitution N (ω) = ω 2 /c3 has been made.
We are now in a position to evaluate Equation 1.10. There are three relevant limits thatemerge2 .
Casimir-Polder limit: r ≫ c/ω0
At large distances, that is for separations larger than the transition wavelength of theatoms, the relevant modes of the fluctuating field are low frequency. At low frequency, thefrequency dependence of the atomic polarizability is trivial, simplifying the treatment. A
substitution of |E(ω)|2 = h̄ω to account for the vacuum fluctuations of the electric fieldgives, finally, Vatom−atom (r) = h̄ cα1 α2 /r 7 . This expression is the famous Casimir retarded
potential for atom-atom interactions. The term “retarded” refers to the fact that a radiative
field couples the atoms and the finite speed of light becomes relevant. In the van der Waals
limit discussed below, the correlations between atoms exists in the near field of the atomic
dipole and the speed of light can be safely ignored. The dependence on h̄ shows that the2

We restrict the following discussion to the interaction between two identical atoms for simplicity.

23

long-range atom-atom interaction is a purely quantum effect.

Lifshitz limit: r ≫ c/ω0 and r > λT
At large distances and finite temperatures, the zero-point fluctuations can be dominated by
the background of thermal photons. The energy in a particular mode of the electromagnetic
field due to zero point fluctuations is Ezeropoint = 12 h̄ω0 , whereas the energy in that modedue to thermal fluctuations ish̄ω0Ethermal =
e

h̄ω0
kb T

(1.11)−1

For small ω0 , Ezeropoint approaches zero while Ethermal ≈ kB T , so thermal fluctuations
dominate for wavelengths larger than the thermal wavelength, λT = h̄c/kB T .

Using the earlier expression for the classical potential, Equation 1.7, but substituting thethermal mode energy removes an h̄c/r and replaces it with a kB T , giving Vatom−atom (r) =α1 α2 kB T /r 6 . The disappearance of the h̄ from this expression shows that the quantum
fluctuations of the vacuum are no longer responsible for the atom-atom interaction at very
long range.

van der Waals limit: r ≪ c/ω0
In the limit that the atoms are spaced more closely than the wavelength associated with thedominant electronic transition, we cannot make the simplifying assumption that the atomic
polarizability remains constant and, additionally, the near field of the dipole becomes dominant. Instead, we must approach the problem from perturbation theory. At second order,
a non-zero atom-atom potential potential emerge, Vatom−atom (r) = [Vdipole−dipole (r)]2 /(Ee −Eg ), where (Ee − Eg ) gives the characteristic excitation energy of the system, typically on

the order of e2 /a0 when the dipole moments are of order ea0 , where e is the electron charge

and a0 is the Bohr radius. This expression gives Vatom−atom (r) = −h̄ω0 (a0 /r)6 , which shows
the typical r −6 dependence associated with the van der Waals interaction.

1.2.2

The atom-surface interaction

A simple way to extend atom-atom interactions to atom-surface interactions is to integrate
over the many atoms that make up a surface. An integration over the volume shows that theatom-surface interaction will necessarily depend on the density of the surface. The atomsurface separation determines which limit of the atom-atom interactions will dominate. In
other words, the bulk of the atom-surface interaction for a separation r derives from theatoms in the layer of thickness r near the surface. For the three relevant limits above, the
24

Si
Si
Si
Si
Si
Si

Si
Si
Si
Si
Si
Si
Si

Si
Si
Si
Si
Si
Si

Si
Si
Si
Si
Si
Si

Si
Si
Si
Si

Na

Si
Si

Si

Figure 1-4: Cartoon explanation of atom-surface interactions. The individual atom-atominteractions between the incident atom and the constituent atoms of the surface gives riseto the atom-surface potential.

expressions for the atom-surface potential can be written as
C4 (ρ)r4
CL (ρ)T= −r3
C3 (ρ)= − 3rVCasimir−Polder = −(1.12)

VLifshitz(1.13)

Vvan der Waals(1.14)

This approach, while intuitive, ignores the structure of the surface and the generally complex
frequency dependencies that arise when atoms are spaced at distances comparable to a0 ,and should not be used to derive a value for C3 or C4 .

Effect of non-equilibrium temperatures
Concurrent to the quantum reflection work presented in this thesis, theoretical work by
Stringari’s group [119, 11, 6, 7, 5, 139] and experimental work by Cornell’s group [70,127, 128] has addressed direct measurement of the atom-surface force in the regime where
thermal fluctuations become relevant. While the dominant contribution of thermal radiation to the atom-surface potential has been well understood since Lifshitz [103, 138, 117],
there had been no measurements of such forces and the non-equilibrium system had notbeen considered. When the surface temperature Tsurf differs from the temperature of thevacuum between the atom and the surface Tvac , the potential takes the form Vnon−eq =2 − T 2 ) [7].
−(C2 /r 2 )(Tsurf
vac

25

1.3

BEC III researchOver the past 5 years, research efforts in my research group, BEC III, have been directed
toward understanding condensates in double-well potentials and the interaction between
atoms and surfaces. Following the construction of the Science Chamber and initial transfer of atoms [64], the first atom chip installed in the science chamber revealed that wire
imperfections posed serious challenges for working with atoms near surfaces [100]. Somecreative thinking from Aaron Leanhardt, then a senior graduate student, led to the very
successful optical double well trap used by Yong-Il Shin to first demonstrate phase coherent splitting of BEC [169] and to study the formation of condensates out of cold thermal
clouds [170, 157]. The introduction by Michele Saba of Bragg scattering to couple atoms
from one well to another replaced the matter wave interference readout of the phase [3] withthe continuous monitoring of the relative phase of the two BECs with either an atomic or
optical signal [148] and created a novel geometry where the two condensates were weakly
coupled in a controllable fashion [168].
Parallel to the work on atoms in double well geometries, a second effort was directed
toward quantum reflection of BEC at normal incidence from solid surfaces [133, 151] andthe improvement of quantum reflection by tailoring the atom surface potential [132].
Perseverance with the challenges of atom chips led to a better understanding of thesensitivity our continuous deformation splitting scheme to technical noise [171] and led
to the adoption of a more successful method pioneered by the Schmiedmayer group in
Heidelberg [158]. In the past year, our rf splitting atom chip has, under the adept hand of
Gyu-boong Jo, produced number squeezed splitting and record setting coherence times [82]and allowed studies of the recombination of condensates in trap [81] and the influence ofphase fluctuations on condensate coherence [80].
This thesis will focus on the atom-surface interaction work because I was more deeply
involved with that work. For a detailed review of our group’s early work on condensatesin double-well geometries, please refer to the theses of Aaron Leanhardt [98] and Yong-Il
Shin [172].

1.4

Outline of thesis

Chapter 2 introduces the experimental apparatus that was nearing completion as I joined
the group in 2002 and provides an overview of the experimental techniques for working
with nanokelvin atoms. The Chapter also focuses on the single coil trap geometry usedin the quantum reflection experiments. Chapter 3 lays the theoretical groundwork for thequantum reflection studied in this thesis. Chapter 4 reviews the current state of quantum
reflection research and describes the first experimental effort on quantum reflection within26the Ketterle group. Chapter 5 describes our work at improving the reflection probability
by reducing the density of the reflecting surface. Our group’s contribution to the current
theoretical model of BEC quantum reflection is described in Chapter 6.
The final year of my thesis research has been dedicated to a major extension of theexperimental apparatus to produce degenerate Fermi gases of sympathetically cooled 6 Li.
Section 2.3 describes some aspects of the upgrade.

27

28

Chapter 2

The Science Chamber Apparatus
The experimental apparatus used for all of the experiments in this thesis came online in 2001
as a third generation machine in the Ketterle/Pritchard group, intended to allow for easy
manipulation of sodium Bose Einstein condensates (BEC). Following the naming traditionsof the lab, the machine was given a name describing its major feature (the Science Chamber)and the group who constructed and maintained it a serial name (BEC III). In the Science
Chamber, BEC is transported with optical tweezers from the production chamber into theauxiliary “science” chamber, an independent vacuum chamber with improved optical access.
Once in the science chamber, condensates are loaded into magnetic and optical microtraps for study. The science chamber affords flexibility in experimental design and rapid
cycling of experiments without compromising the ultrahigh vacuum required for condensate
production. Research in the science chamber is focused on the manipulation of condensates,
novel trapping geometries, and atom interferometry [25, 98, 157, 151, 172].
An extensive description of the construction and design of the Science Chamber can befound in Ananth Chikkatur’s thesis [25]. Most aspects of the machine were modeled on the
successful BEC I and BEC II machines, so the thesis work of Dan Stamper-Kurn [176] andothers are also relevant.
This chapter will present an overview and details of the most relevant aspects of theapparatus.

2.1

Apparatus overview

The science chamber apparatus was designed as a condensate beamline which would separate the production of BEC from the experiments performed with BEC. All of the techniquesin the following discussion are used in the experiments we publish, they are typically summarized by a single line: “Bose-Einstein condensates containing more than 107 23 Na atoms
were created in the weak field seeking |F = 1, mF = −1i state in a magnetic trap, captured
29

F= 3
58 MHz16 MHz3 2 P 3/2

F= 2
34 MHzF= 1
16 MHzF= 0589.15 nm

F= 2
665 MHz3 2S1/2
1.77 GHz

1.11 GHz

F= 1

Figure 2-1: 23 Na D2 line structure, adapted from Ref [180]. MOT trapping light is nearresonant with the F = 2 → F ′ = 3 cycling transition, repumping light is near resonant with
the F = 1 → F ′ = 2 transition, and slowing light is 1GHz detuned from the F = 2 → F ′ = 3
transition. Trapped atoms are typically in the ground (F = 1) state, and are imaged
with light near the repumping frequency or optically pumped into the F = 2 state with
repumping light then imaged with light near the MOT frequency.

in the focus of an optical tweezers laser beam and transferred into and auxiliary “science”
chamber as described in [64].” This section presents a less streamlined overview of the experiment, as might be given to an undergraduate interested in working on the experiment.
The presentation is intended to supplement a technical description of the machine [182, 25]
by giving the reader an appreciation for the various systems that must be maintained inorder to work with BEC.

2.1.1

23

Na

In the Science Chamber, we work with 23 Na, an alkali metal total nuclear spin I = 3/2 anda single, ground-state valence electron in the 3S orbital (S = 1/2, L = 0). The first excited30

Atomic Mass
Melting Point
Ground State Magnetic Moment
Natural Line Width
Recoil Velocity
Saturation Intensity
Scattering Length

22.989 u= 3.818 × 10−26 kg
97.8◦ CµB /2 = 463.70 J/T=0.7MHz/G
2π × 9.795 MHz
2.9461 cm/s
6.40 mW/cm2
2.75 nmTable 2.1: Sodium data collected from Ref. [180].

state sees the promotion of this electron to the 3P orbital (S = 1/2, L = 1), resulting in
the fine structure doublet. Of these, the D2 transition from the 32 S1/2 state to the 32 P3/2
state is the one used for trapping and cooling. The relevant optical structure is shown in
Figure 2-1. A few relevant physical properties are collected in Table 2.1.

2.1.2

Vacuum system

The vacuum system for the BEC III lab was designed with four main sections, visible in
the photo of Figure 2-2. The “main” chamber, where BECs are created, was designed toaccommodate the magnetic field coils and half-dozen optical axes necessary for cooling andtrapping. Slowed atoms are introduced to the main chamber via the multi-species oven [178]and the Zeeman slower, a ∼ 2 m long tube connecting the oven to the main chamber. These
three sections comprise the heart of any large number BEC apparatus [182]. The sciencechamber, is connected to the main chamber by a pneumatic gate valve. When closed off, thescience chamber can be vented to atmospheric pressure and reconfigured to introduce newexperiments. When opened, the gate valve allows for condensed atoms to be transported
via an optical dipole trap (ODT) from the main chamber to the science chamber. Since theoriginal construction, described in Reference [25], the science chamber has been replacedwith a larger volume chamber as described in Reference [172].
Bose-Einstein condensates exist at temperatures roughly a billionth of room temperature; nitrogen and oxygen molecules travel at speeds of ∼300 m/s at room temperature
while the atoms in a BEC travel at a few cm/s. Interactions between BEC and room
temperature gases must be avoided. All of our experiments are performed at “ultra-high”
vacuum (UHV) in an evacuated stainless steel vacuum chamber maintained at a nominalpressure of 10−11 Torr, as opposed to atmospheric pressure of 760 Torr. The density of“air” in the vacuum chamber is roughly 10−14 times the density of air at sea level; insteadof a number density of 2.6 × 1019 atoms/cm3 for air at standard pressure, inside the vacuum

chamber, the number density is roughly 3 × 105 atoms/cm3 . There are no more than a few
billion room temperature air molecules inside the entire apparatus.
31

(b)

(c)

(a)
(d)

Figure 2-2: The Science Chamber as in 2007. There are four main vacuum sections: (a) the
main chamber for BEC production, (b) the multi-species oven for generating flux of 23 Na
and 6 Li, (c) the slower for slowing the atomic beams, and (d) the science chamber for rapid
cycling of experiments.

At such low pressures, the desorption of gases from surfaces becomes substantial, gradually destroying the UHV environment. The vacuum is maintained from day-to-day by
several ion pumps and titanium sublimation pumps [129, 65]. In the event that any partof the system is exposed to air at atmospheric pressure, for example to refresh the atomic
source or reconfigure the science chamber, the vacuum is re-established with a turbo pump.
After brief, controlled exposure to an inert gas, like argon, vacuum can be re-establishedwithin a day. For extended exposure to oxygen and water vapor, the surfaces of the vacuum
chamber typically need to be heated to 120◦ C with the turbo pump running for one or moredays to allow these gasses to desorb from the surfaces completely. Extensive descriptions of
the baking procedures used by the lab to prepare the system for 10−11 Torr can be foundin Reference [25].

2.1.3

Cooling atoms

Sodium and, recently, lithium atoms are introduced to the vacuum via an atomic beam
originating in the oven. A gas of the desired atom is produced by heating a solid sample in
the oven. A small hole in the oven, the nozzle, allows this gas to stream out of the oven andinto the Zeeman slower. Along the path to the main chamber, a series of apertures ensurethat only atoms traveling directly along the line connecting the oven to the center of thevacuum chamber enter the ultra-high vacuum region.
32

k net
k'

SE

R

k'

LA

Ze
em

k'

4xk

an
S

low
er

k'

Figure 2-3: Slowing of the atomic beam. When an atom traveling down the Zeeman slower
scatters a photon, it receives a “kick” of momentum h̄k opposite the direction of motion.
It may spontaneously re-emit this photon into a randomly directed the mode k′ , where|k| = |k′ |. As this event is repeated some N = 105 times, the h̄k kicks sum to remove the′majority of the atom’s original√ momentum and the h̄k kicks add in quadrature to give an
expected final momentum of N h̄k, which is only about 1% of the initial momentum. The
figure shows the resultant momentum kick for N=4 scattered photons.

In the Zeeman slower, the atoms scatter light from counter-propagating laser light tuned
near resonance in a process called Zeeman slowing [115]. Many scattering events reducethe mean velocity of the atoms from a velocity of ∼ 800 m/s to ∼ 30 m/s, as described in

Figure 2-3. Because of the large initial velocity, the atomic resonance is Doppler shifted by∼ 1.5 GHz and a magnetic field profile must be added to Zeeman shift the atoms back on
resonance with the laser. The details and characterization of the Science Chamber Zeeman
slower can be found in Ref [25].
The Zeeman slower provides a continuous flux of ∼ 1011 s−1 atoms to the main cham-ber. These atoms are continuously loading into a dark-SPOT [89] magneto-optical trap
(MOT) [142], as shown in Figure 2-4. The MOT comprises 3 pairs of counter-propagating
laser beams tuned near the F = 2 → F ′ = 3 cycling transition which exert a force on out-

wardly propagating atoms, a spherical quadrupole magnetic field which brings the atoms
into resonance with the proper beam, and a repumping laser beam which transfers atoms

from the F = 1 lower ground state to the F = 2 upper ground state when an unfavorable
scattering process leaves the atom in the F = 1 state. In the MOT, atoms are further
cooled to the Doppler limit of 240 µK. Following a brief (∼ 5 ms) period of sub-Doppler
polarization gradient cooling, atoms are transferred into the magnetic trap.
The Zeeman slower and MOT rely on the scattering of resonant light to corral atoms
33

Figure 2-4: The left panel, from Ref. [142], show the field and laser configuration for amagneto-optical trap. The upper right panel, also from Ref. [142], shows how the energy
levels of a zero angular momentum ground state (S state) and an excited P state in ahypothetical atom vary spatially in the quadrupole magnetic field, bringing escaping atoms
into resonance with the appropriate, counter-propagating MOT beam. The lower rightpanel is a picture of a MOT through the bucket window of the vacuum chamber.

by “watching” for diffusive motion and opposing with small kicks any atom that is nearing
escape. Magnetic trapping of atoms, in contrast, creates a uniform potential of sufficientdepth that all atoms are contained by their small kinetic energy, the same way the earth’s
atmosphere is confined gravitationally. Unlike the slower and MOT which are open systems
in which the light can carry away energy, atoms in a magnetic trap, which is a closed system,
are not “cooled”, and can only exchange kinetic and potential energy with each other andthe trap. In order to cool in a magnetic trap, hotter atoms must be removed from the trap.
This is accomplished by evaporative cooling [90]; an atom in a “trappable” state is coupled
to an “un-trappable” state in a small region of the magnetic trap. This region is initiallyplaced far from the center of the trap so that only the most energetic atoms can reach theregion and be ejected from the trap. By selectively removing the high energy tail of thethermal distribution of atoms, the remaining atoms are cooled. As the region is slowly
brought closer to the center of the trap, the temperature falls.

2.1.4

Magnetic and optical trapping

Atoms that have a non-zero magnetic moment can be trapped by magnetic fields. Whena magnetic moment is oriented along the magnetic field lines (polarized) it experiences an
34

(A)

(B)
Trapped atoms

14 cm

Quadrupole
Anti-Bias

Quadrupole
4+2 turns,
7 layers

Anti-Bias
Anti-Bias
6 turns,
3 layers

Quadrupole

Cloverleaf (Gradient)

Curvature
6 turns,
8 layers

Curvature

Cloverleaves
4 turns, 3 layers

Figure 2-5: Panel A (reproduced from Ref.[182]) shows the assembly of the Science Chamber magnetic trap. Panel B is a photograph of the actual coil before installation withspecifications.

energy shift, and therefore a force, due to a magnetic field gradient. The magnetic momentof an atom is quantized with respect to the local field, and can be in a state that is drawn
towards regions of larger field or drawn toward regions of smaller field. These states are
identified as the strong and weak field seeking states. Strong field seeking atoms are “untrappable” in free space because magnetic field maxima are found only at sources. Magnetic
field minima are possible, so the weak field seeking states are “trappable”.
The spherical quadrupole magnetic field, generated by a pair of coils running equalcurrents in opposite directions, creates a central magnetic field zero which traps weak fieldseeking atoms. As these atoms move away from the center, they enter regions of increasing
magnetic field and thus feel a restoring force. Our trap geometry, see Figure 2-5, is slightly
more sophisticated than a spherical quadrupole, having a non-zero field minimum in orderthat the atoms remain polarized in the trap. Our cloverleaf magnetic trap is one formof Ioffe-Pritchard trap [60, 141, 116], and is described in detail in many Ketterle grouptheses [176, 25, 181]. The MOT windings provide the spherical quadrupole field for the
MOT, the curvature and anti-bias windings can provide either a low bias, high curvaturefield (when Icurvature = −Ianti−bias ), or high bias, low curvature field (when Icurvature ≈−0.1 × Ianti−bias ), and the cloverleaves provide a magnetic field gradient.

In optical trapping, an induced electric dipole moment is generated and manipulated

by a strong laser. In a laser field, which is best described as an oscillating electric field,
the ground and excited states of a two-level atom are coherently mixed. The resulting
mixed states (the “dressed” states) have an energy that depends on the intensity of the35

laser field and the detuning of the laser frequency from the atomic transition frequency.
Specifically, for red (blue) detuning, that is the laser frequency is lower (higher) than thetransition frequency, the mixed ground state has lower (higher) energy for higher laser field
intensities. Atoms are therefore drawn into regions of high (low) intensity. This “dipole”
force is different than the scattering forces involved with the Zeeman slowing or MOT
cooling of atoms as it can be made large in the absence of significant excitation of theatom [115]. Traps using the dipole force for confinement are regarded as conservative.
Optical trapping is central to the “optical tweezers” (optical dipole trap) used to transfer
Bose-Einstein condensates from the main chamber to the science chamber [64]. Approximately 1 W of laser power at 1064 nm is focused by a series of lenses to a ∼ 25 µm diameterto create a trap in the center of the main chamber. As the laser power is ramped up, theconfinement of atoms is transferred from the magnetic field to the optical field until themagnetic confinement may be turned off. The focus is then horizontally translated ∼36 cm

by horizontally translating one of the focusing lenses. After some hold time to relax the few

excitations that result from translation, the condensate is transferred into the experimentby ramping up the experimental trap and reducing the laser field to zero.

2.1.5

Generation of light

The laser light at 589 nm necessary for the experiment is generated by a Coherent 899 dyelaser pumped by 8.5 W of 532 nm light from a Spectra Physics Millenia solid state laser onan optical table separate from the experiment. The 899 is locked via saturated absorption
spectroscopy 200 MHz from the F = 2 → F = 3 transition in a vapor cell heated to 95◦ . A
series of acousto-optic modulators (AOMs) shift the frequency of the light to the relevant

frequencies, shown in Figure 2-1, and two electro-optic modulators (EOMs) add repumping
sidebands to the slower and MOT beams. Optical fibers carry the light between the laser
table, pictured in Figure 2-6 and shown in Appendix A of Reference [172], to the experimenttable.
Historically BEC III and BEC I shared control and maintenance of a laser table for
their experiments. In my first year at MIT, the two groups collaborated to duplicate thissystem and allow for greater independence, resulting in the Science Chamber Na laser tablepictured in Figure 2-6. The separation allowed both machines to be run simultaneously,
but has meant increased upkeep for BEC III; the sodium laser’s particular sensitivity tofluctuations in temperature is problematic every summer as the temperature control in
the experiment room (26-248) shared by Science Chamber and Lithium Lab cannot be
maintained by MIT central services as well as the Lithium Lab laser room (26-242). A
typical plot of temperature (Figure 2-7) throughout the day shows the uncontrolled rise intemperature. Consequently, the efficiency of experiments in the Science Chamber during
36

Figure 2-6: The sodium (top) laser and lithium (bottom) laser tables.

37

36

26

Temperature (C)

34

o

23

o

22

o

26

o

32

o

35

o

36

o

32
30
28
26
24
6

7

8

9
10
Time (days)

11

12

13

Figure 2-7: A plot of the temperature inside the Na laser table during summer 2007. Gridlines show the approximate location of midnight. The daily outdoor highs are given foreach day. Days 8 and 9 are Saturday and Sunday, when the machine was not turned on.
The source of the small fluctuations before noon on those days is probably due to thetemperature being appropriately regulated by the AC unit to ±0.2◦ C.

the summer is greatly decreased.

2.1.6

Imaging atoms

All data on Bose-Einstein condensates are collected photographically. When a resonant
laser beam is shown onto a cloud of atoms, some of the light is scattered, that is, absorbedby the atoms and emitted into a vacuum mode. The beam is now “missing” some photons.
By comparing an image of the beam with atoms to an image of the beam without atoms
reveals a “shadow” where the BEC “absorbed” light from the beam. This form of imaging
is called absorption imaging.
In this work, two forms of absorption imaging are used. In F = 1 imaging, atoms in
the F = 1 lower ground state are imaged with light resonant with the F = 1 to F = 2
transition. In F = 2 imaging, atoms are first optically pumped into the F = 2 upper
ground state and then imaged on the F = 2 to F = 3 cycling transition. In F = 1 imaging,each atom scatters, on average, two photons before transitioning into a non-resonant state,
where as in F = 2 imaging atoms at a given density scatter a known fraction of the laser
field. Some sample BEC F = 1 images are shown in Figure 2-8.
At times, the density of atoms is too high to obtain a decent image or the dimensionsof the trapped atoms are too small to be resolved optically. In this situation, the trapping
potential can be removed such that the atoms, allowing the atoms to expand as they fallunder the influence of gravity. During this “time of flight”, the potential energy of the
38

c)

d)

Figure 2-8: Some sample images of BEC. The upper images show a BEC from the mainchamber magnetic trap containing a) 3 million atoms with 25 ms time-of-flight and b) 14
million atoms with time-of-flight 65 ms. The lower images show a BEC of 1 million atomsc) in the optical tweezers trap and d) with 10 ms time-of-flight.

trap and the mean-field energy are converted into kinetic energy. The expanded clouds are
typically of sufficiently low density to image after ∼ 10 ms time of flight. The images shownin Figure 2-8 have differing time of flight from the same trap.

2.1.7

The science chamber

The Science Chamber has enjoyed success in various aspects of condensate physics, continuous BEC [27], BEC interferometry [148], atom chips [82], atom surface interactions [133],and guiding atoms through fibers [189] in large part due to the flexibility of the sciencechamber at accommodating new experiments on a routine basis. The science chamber, initially a small spherical chamber with an atom chip, a piece of glass for quantum reflection,
and a beam shutter for the continuous BEC experiment crammed inside. Since then, thescience chamber has been replaced with a 6 inch cube with full sized viewports which canaccommodate a wide range of vacuum feedthroughs and provides optical access comparable
to the glass cell of BEC II [43]. Of particular note is a stepper motor controlled linear
motion feedthrough that was installed and tested during the second quantum reflection
experiment.
Linear motion feedthroughOne benefit of the science chamber is the ability to host several experiments simultaneously.
To achieve the best control over the externally applied bias fields, however, all experiments
39

0ms

100ms

20ms

120ms

40ms

140ms

60ms

160ms

80ms

180ms

Figure 2-9: A series of quantum reflection images collected by moving the surface into
the condensate at 8 mm/s. The surface was stopped in the center of the condensate andimmediately removed. It remains visible in the first several images. The center of mass of
the reflected atoms oscillates in the trap as expected, but the reflected cloud has “velocity
sidebands” of up to ±20% of the center of mass velocity which spatially separate during
the dipole oscillation.

would be situated in the center of the science chamber. In the past, we had compromisedby running two experiments simultaneously, with each of slightly off center. During theconstruction of the reduced-density quantum reflection experiment, we wanted to be able
to accommodate more than two surfaces and wanted to be able to compare the performanceof these surfaces in the same trapping potential. This meant finding some way to reposition
the surfaces in vacuum. Further, if the surfaces could be moved relative to the trap, we
could “hit the atoms with the surface” rather than “hitting the surface with atoms” during
the experiment.
To this end, we installed a linear actuator (MDC part number BLM-133-2-03) in a“mini-flange” port of the custom designed 6-port flange shown in Appendix E. Two of theremaining mini-flange ports were used for electrical connects and the 2 3/4 inch port wasused for a window to maintain the imaging axis. The actuator was connected to a “carton rails” apparatus which held the various surfaces above the single coil, as pictured in
Figure 4-2 and shown in Appendix E. The actuator was controlled by a 200 W AC servo
40

motor (Yaskawa part number SGMAH-02BAN21) fitted with an interface collar and driven
by a Legend digital torque amplifier (Yaskawa part number SGDG-04GT). The motor had
a built in 13-bit encoder and a maximum angular speed of 5000 rpm, corresponding to a
maximum linear velocity of ∼ 5 cm/s (1 revolution = 0.025 inches of linear travel). The
encoder signal allowed for closed loop control of the angular position to less than 1 µm. A
PC interface card (SPiiPlus PCI-4) was used to pre-program and adjust motion waveforms.
The performance of the linear feedthrough apparatus was both good and not good.
Point-to-point control of the surfaces was reproducible over many runs of the experiment andthe resolution of the system was below the diagnostic limits of our imaging. Additionally,
we did not observe any deleterious effects (vibrations, etc.) from the torques generating
linear accelerations. However, there were problems with the “smoothness” of accelerationand deceleration. The most telling diagnostic are a series of quantum reflection images thatpuzzled the group for several weeks, shown in Figure 2-9. While the physics of the observed“velocity sidebands” may be related to the deceleration of the surface at the moment ofreflection, we think that the discrete nature of the sidebands must come from the discrete
nature of the encoder in the feedback loop.
There are a few other options for generating linear motion in UHV. Of note is the
Nanomotion linear motor which interfaces piezo elements with a friction plate to generate
nanometer resolution motion with unlimited travel. Some systems are compatible with
10−10 Torr.

2.2

The single-coil trap

This section supplements work reported in the following publication, included in Appendix
A:• A. E. Leanhardt, T. A. Pasquini, M. Saba, A. Schirotzek, Y. Shin, D. Kielpinski, D. E.
Pritchard, and W. Ketterle “Cooling Bose-Einstein condensates below 500 picokelvin”, Science
301, 1513 (2003).

Many of the experiments described in this work were performed in a trapping geometry
designed and implemented during my first year at MIT. The “single-coil” trap or “gravitomagnetic” trap rivals the planar “z-trap” for simplicity. The single coil trap comprises asingle current-carrying coil to provide a magnetic field gradient which levitates the atoms
against gravity and an external bias field to create an on-axis field minimum which confines
the atoms in the horizontal plane1 . The defining characteristics of the single-coil trap are1

We were interested to learn, after the fact, that the single coil trap had been described previously by
Chris Monroe for the trapping of cesium atoms. A similar trap geometry, the opposed coil trap, was used
to trap cesium atoms [121]41extremely low mean trap frequencies (on the order of a few Hertz) and densities (on theorder of 1011 atoms/cm3 ) in a geometry that ranges from spherical to “pancake”. Throughadiabatic decompression, the single-coil trap has been used to create the coldest manmade
temperatures [99, 49] of 450 picokelvin for samples of a few thousand atoms.
The single coil trap is a specialty of our labs, crucial to the quantum reflection experiments presented here, and quickly becoming unfamiliar on the hallway. This sectionis therefore intended as both a primer and a troubleshooting guide. The section begins
with an analysis of the hypothetical “single loop” trap, much of which directly extends tothe many-loop single coil trap. The sensitivities of the single coil trap and some standard
techniques for using the single coil trap are then discussed.

2.2.1

Single-loop trap geometry

A single loop of radius R carrying current I creates an on-axis magnetic field profile thatis a maximum at the center of the coil and falls off with height z as
Bz =

µ0 I
R2
2 (R2 + z 2 )3/2

(2.1)

where µ0 is the permeability of free space. The gradient of this field,
Bz′ = −

µ0 I
3R2 z
2 (R2 + z 2 )5/2

(2.2)

will exert a force, FB = µB ′ , on an atom with magnetic moment µ. In the single loop trap,
this force is used to balance the force of gravity on the atoms, giving an expression for therequired levitating gradient B0′ = 2mg/µB ≈ 8G/cm where m is the mass of the atom, gis the acceleration due to gravity and we have used µ = µB /2 as the magnetic moment of
23 Na in the F = 1, m

F = −1 state, where µB is the Bohr magneton. Because the force ofgravity on the atom is constant, but FB falls off with z, there is, given sufficiently large I, a
point above the loop where the magnetic force balances the gravitational force, as shown in
Figure 2-10. There are typically two real roots to the expression mg = µB /2×B ′ ; the smallerof these roots is not a stable trapping point because the curvature is negative below z = R/2.
The expression for the trapping minimum, z0 , is easily found by selecting the correct rootwhen substituting B0′ into the above expression. As the current in the loop is decreased,
z0 moves closer to the z = R/2. Below the threshold current, Imin ≈ 4.66 × mgR2 /µB µ0 ,there is no point with sufficient gradient to levitate a sodium atom.

The resulting trapping potential, Vz = µB + mgz, is not harmonic in z, as is readily
apparent from Figure 2-10, but may be approximated as harmonic for small oscillation
amplitude. The trap frequency is found from the second derivative of the potential as
42

Acceleration (g)

6
5
4
3

Unstable
trap point

2

Stabletrap point

1
0
-1
0

5

10

15

20

Potential Energy (MHz)Distance Above Loop (mm)

20

15

10

5

0
0

5

10

15

20

Distance Above Loop (mm)Figure 2-10: In the vertical direction, the force on an atom due to the gradient of themagnetic field of a single loop is used to balance the force of gravity. The top panel shows
the acceleration (in units of g) of a 23 Na atom above a 1 cm diameter loop running 28 A.
The zero crossing is the vertical trapping position, z0 . The total trapping potential (solidline) is the sum of the gravitational potential (dashed line) and the magnetic potential(dotted line), shown in the bottom panel. The potential can be approximated as harmonicfor small displacements.

43

Bz

z

(a)

Br
R

r

y

(c)
400

200

0

-200
-10

-5

0

5

Radial Position (mm)Magnetic Field Strength (Gauss)(b)

Magnetic Field Strength (Gauss)

x

10

5

0

-5
-10

-5

0

5

10

Radial Position (mm)Figure 2-11: The geometry for the magnetic field calculations. (a) The coil resides in the x-yplane. The magnetic field profiles for Bz (ρ) (dashed), Bρ (ρ) (dotted), and Btot (ρ) (solid)
are shown for (b) z = 0 and (c) z = R.

fz = ωz /2π = 1/2π × (Vz′′ /m)1/2 . Within the experimentally relevant region (z0 >R),
tighter (looser) confinement in the vertical direction can be obtained by working closer to(further from) the loop where the field curvature is larger (smaller) or by working with asmaller (larger) radius loop which provides a larger (smaller) field curvature. The verticaltrap frequency is fairly insensitive to z0 , varying only by a factor of 2 over the range
R < z < 2R. It should also be noted that adding a bias field in the z direction, as
is necessary for radial confinement, will not change the location of the trap minimum orchange the vertical trapping frequency.
Support against gravity is necessary, but not sufficient, to provide three-dimensional
confinement for atoms. In order for the atom to be confined radially, we require that the onaxis magnetic field be a local minimum (positive radial curvature). In this scenario, atoms
in the weak field seeking state will be drawn toward the axis. Analytic off-axis calculationsof the magnetic field of a loop are notoriously un-illuminating, involving elliptic integrals
and requiring numeric evaluation. Reasonable treatments use the vector potential as inJackson [79] or the Biot-Savart law as in Griffiths [62]. However, by approximating the off
axis field to second order, some general observations can be made [12].
44Maxwell’s equations constrain the behavior of static fields [190, 121, 149]. Specifically,
i=3
X
∂Bi

=0

(2.3)

∂Bj
∂Bi
=
∂xj
∂xi

(2.4)

∂xi

If we approximate the vertical field at the trap position to second order as: Bz = B0 +(mg/µ)z + κz z 2 + κρ ρ2 , Maxwell’s equations require that Bρ = −(mg/µ)ρ − 4κ1 zρ and2κ2 = κ1 . We therefore write

Bz = B0 +Bρ = −

mg1
z + κ(z 2 − ρ2 )
µ
2

(2.5)

mg
ρ − κρz2µClose to the axis of the loop, the total magnetic field, Btot (zρ) =

(2.6)
q

Bz2 + Bρ2 , is dominatedby Bz , with Bρ increasing roughly linearly off-axis. When the fields add in quadrature, theterm linear in ρ in Bρ combines with the bias field B0 to give a total field with a lowest order
quadratic dependence Btot ≈ B0 + ([Bz′ ]2 /8B0 )ρ2 . The radial trap frequency proportional√
to Br′ / B0 . An exact calculation of the near-axis magnetic field is shown in Figure 2-11.
In the plane of the loop, the radial curvature of the total magnetic field is positive,
providing a radially confining potential Vρ = µBtot (ρ). Out of the plane of the loop, theradial curvature of the total magnetic field decreases from its on-axis maximum, eventually
becomes negative (anti-trapping) at a height, z0curv ≃ 0.63 × R, as shown in Figure 2-12.

The radial curvature reaches a minimum value at zmincurv ≃ 0.98 × R, before increasing tozero at z = ∞.

The isolated single loop, then, has a 3D stable trapping point for height 0.5R < z0 <0.63R. The current running in the loop must be chosen to provide the appropriate verticalgradient to support atoms against gravity. The minimum 3D trap frequency is found withz0 close to 0.63R.
In practice, it is useful to trap atoms further from the plane of the loop, where theradial curvature due to the loop current is negative. This is accomplished by introducing
a singularity in the potential experienced by the atoms. By applying an “anti-bias” field,
Banti in the z direction, Bz is completely canceled on-axis at a height z ′ . At this point, Btot′
is dominated by Bρ , which increases linearly off-axis. The discontinuity in Btot
becomes apositive singularity in the radial curvature, as shown in Figure 2-13(a). This extends therange of positive curvature to all points above the loop, excepting a small region between
z0curv and the zero crossing created by the singularity. This technique has the further benefit
of independent control of the vertical trapping position and the radial trap frequency, as45

4Potential

Radial Trap Frequency (Hz)

5

3
2
1

Radial Position

0
-1
-2
0

5

10
Trapping Distance Above Loop (mm)1520Figure 2-12: The radial trap frequency as a function of z for a 1 cm diameter loop carrying
1A. The trap frequency scales√as the square root of the current, so the value of ωρ can befound by scaling this plot by I. Negative values for the trap frequency indicate an “antitrapping”, negative curvature. The inset shows the radial potential topology for typicaltrapping parameters. The limited trap depth is discussed in Section 2.2.3.

shown in Figure 2-13(b). With z0 set by the loop current I, the radial trap frequency
can be varied between zero and any positive value by changing the value of the anti-bias
field. Atoms can be loaded into a tightly confining trap and adiabatically decompressed(and cooled) by decreasing or increasing the anti-bias field and moving the location of thesingularity.
In a common situation, the loop is actually a series of loops comprising a coil. Most of
the “loop” analysis above transfers directly to the “coil” analysis by careful accounting of
the magnetic field produced by each winding. In practice, such calculations are overkill whenatoms are supported more than a loop radius away from the center of the coil. Comparisons
for the single coil used in this experiment to a single loop are shown in Figure 2-14. The
coil shows a slightly decreased (about 10%) vertical trap frequency for a given trappingheight. The only major difference is in the current required. Significantly less current isrequired to levitate atoms at a given height when the current passes through several, tightly
wound loops. Because the radial trap frequencies are controlled by a bias field, any change
associated with the coil configuration can be compensated by changing the bias field slightly.
To summarize the single coil trap: a single coil can support atoms against gravity bybalancing the force of gravity with the force on the magnetic moment of the atom from themagnetic field gradient; the horizontal confinement of the atom is achieved by adjusting ananti-bias field, ensuring that the total magnetic field is a minimum on axis.
46

Potential

Radial Trap Frequency (Hz)

25
20
15
10
5

Radial Position

0
-5
-10
0

5

10
15
Trapping Distance Above Loop (mm)2025Potential

Field Strength (G)Figure 2-13: The single loop trap with an applied anti-bias field. The magnitude of theanti-bias field was selected to exactly cancel Bz for a 1 cm diameter coil carrying 28 A
(z0 ≈ 1 cm) at z = 1.5R (dashed line) and z = 1.2R (solid line). The zero bias field
line is shown for reference (dotted line). For the solid (dashed) line case, the radial trap
frequency is ∼2 Hz (∼85 Hz) at z0 . The inset shows Vρ at z = R for various anti-bias fieldstrengths; Banti =0 (dot-dashed line), 1.5 G (dotted line), 2.5 G (dashed line), and 3.5 G(solid line). An on-axis field maximum is turned into an on axis minimum. The large tickmarks represent the location of the coil. The overall offset of the potential is unimportant.

1.2
0.8
0.4
0.0
-20

0

5

-10
0
10
Vertical Position (mm)10Vertical Positon (mm)

15

20

20

Figure 2-14: The vertical trapping potential for a single loop (dashed line) compared toa single coil (solid line) for a constant trapping position, z0 ≈ 1 cm. The vertical trap
frequency for the coil is reduced by approximately 10%. The inset shows the on axis
magnetic field strength for the single loop running 1 A (dashed line) and single coil withintegrated current 1 A (solid line).

47

2.2.2

Sensitivity of the single-coil trap to external fields

One of the challenges of working with the single-coil trap is its sensitivity to external
magnetic fields. At this point, we have only considered the field of the coil and an external,
vertical anti-bias magnetic field. We now discuss the effect of (a) external bias fields in thehorizontal (X-Y) plane and (b) magnetic field gradients.
Bias fields in the horizontal plane shift the position of the magnetic field minimum off
axis. Without a bias field, the Bρ is zero on axis; and the addition of a bias field, ∆B
moves the location of the zero off axis by approximately ∆B/Bρ′ . For the typical trapping
parameters of R = 5 mm, I = 28 A, z0 = 1 cm, and ωρ = 5 Hz give a residual bias field ofBtot ≈ 1 G. Adding a 1% horizontal bias field of 10 mG shifts in the point where Bρ = 0 off
axis by 25 µm and the trapping position 60 µm off axis. These distances are comparable

to typical condensate length scales. The shift off axis changes the trap frequency by lessthan 0.1% and, as such, a jump in the horizontal bias field will “kick” the trapped atoms,
providing a useful mechanism for measuring a trap frequency.
It is worth noting that the horizontal component of the Earth’s magnetic field in Boston
is roughly 200 mG [187], which, unless compensated, will shift the trap position roughly
1 mm off axis and therefore must be compensated in our experiments.
External magnetic field gradients are less prevalent than bias fields, and their effect on
the trap less important. Vertical gradients will exert a force on the atoms which will add
or subtract from the force of gravity. It is unlikely, therefore, that vertical gradients would
be detected unless they were transient. Near the axis, Bρ changes linearly, so adding a
gradient would just emphasize or de-emphasize the role of Bρ , increasing or decreasing thetrap frequency correspondingly. The greatest impact of a horizontal gradient is to break thecylindrical symmetry of the trap, giving different trap frequencies in the direction parallelto and perpendicular to the gradient.
Static magnetic fields and gradients, then, are a significant, but not major, hassle whenworking with the single coil trap. Transient fields, however, can be very troublesome. In
any trap, the timescales for relaxation scale with the trap frequency; excitations in the
single coil trap damp some tens of times slower than in the ODT or a chip-based wire trap.
Furthermore, the electronic noise at low frequencies may be larger. Experiments in the
single coil trap take seconds to perform as opposed to milliseconds, creating large temporalwindows for excitations to enter the system.
One notable source of transient excitations is the Lithium Lab magnetic trap, used tocreate kG bias fields for working with Feshbach resonances. These fields are generated
approximately by a pair of coils run in Helmholtz configuration roughly 2.5 m away fromthe Science Chamber apparatus. The fields fall off as ∼ 1/r 3 , which drops the field by afactor of ∼ 104 , meaning that the residual field is several 10s of mG. This is sufficient to48

(a)BEC III Experiment
Table
BEC I Experiment
Table-2 to +1 Variable Gain Amplifier
2 kWHall probe(0-10V)

Compensation
Coil

}

}
Feshbach
Field
Region(b)Single CoilExperiment

ScienceChamber

+15V

910 W

-

10 kW

+

OP77

To Agilent CC(0-10V)

-15V

0.6 m
2.7 m

Figure 2-15: a) The Feshbach coils of the BEC I experiment and science chamber y-bias
coils of the BEC III experiment are collinear. (b) The current in the BEC I Feshbach coils
is monitored by a Hall probe. A proportional current through the compensation coil, tuned
using the above circuit, will cancel the magnetic field above the single coil experiment.

shift the horizontal trap position more than 1 mm when the coils are running.
To protect against these transient fields and allow both experiments to be run simultaneously, we considered both passive and active stabilization techniques, finally settling on acompensation coil installed collinearly between the two experiments, as shown in Figure 215. Conveniently, the axis of the Li Feshbach coils is aligned with the axis of the sciencechamber. A pickup circuit was installed, see Figure 2-15, to monitor the current in the
Li Feshbach coil and apply a proportional current in the compensation coil. The current
in the compensation coil generated a field that canceled the field of the Li Feshbach coilsin the center of the chamber. When put into operation, the compensation coil removed
any measurable effect. As a negative side effect, the compensation coil introduced a straymagnetic field gradient of about 3 mG/cm (up from 0.7 mG/cm with the Feshbach coil).
A second technique considered for maintaining field stability inside the science chamber
was the installation of a passive high magnetic permeability (mu-metal) shield around thechamber. Such shields are in wide use in precision experiments and can reduce field strengths
by orders of magnitude. Ultimately, this choice was unwieldy because of the size of the region
to be shielded (the external bias field coils must be enclosed by the shield) and the proximityof stray field sources, like ion pump magnets, whose field lines could be concentrated by the
optical apertures in the shield.
A third technique, still in development, was small, vacuum compatible magnetic fieldsensors. An array of such sensors could be used to actively monitor the field inside thescience chamber and correct for fluctuations by feeding back on the external bias coils.
49

1cm

Figure 2-16: Winding pattern for the single coil used in the quantum reflection experiments.
The loops were supported by an aluminum cylinder, also used for mounting purposes.

Such a system may be considered for future applications.

2.2.3

Experimental single-coil trap

Having established the theoretical operation of the single coil trap, we turn now to theimplementation of the single coil trap used for the first quantum reflection experiment. The
coil comprised 24 turns of Kapton coated 30 gauge wire (0.5 mm diameter with coating)in an aluminum holder, configured as in Figure 2-16. The coil was coated in an electricallyinsulating, vacuum compatible epoxy (Epo-Tek H77 Epoxy). The final trapping position
was on-axis approximately 8 mm above the 10.5 mm (average) diameter coil, well outside of
the zero-bias trapping region. The anti-bias field was provided by a pair of 10 cm diametercoils mounted outside of the science chamber (the z-bias coils).
The single coil trap is characterized by three trap frequencies, the vertical trap frequency
and two horizontal trap frequencies. For a given coil geometry, the vertical trap frequency
is purely a function of the vertical trapping position, z0 , while the horizontal trap frequency
depends on both the vertical trapping position and the applied anti-bias field. These trap
frequencies are easily measured by (1) changing the current running in the single coil or(2) applying an external, horizontal bias field. The vertical trap position can be changed
by changing the coil current. Typically a change of a few tens of milliamps is sufficient to
induce a small amplitude oscillation that is monitored to give the vertical trap frequency.
As discussed in Section 2.2.2, the addition of a horizontal bias field shifts the trap center
off-axis. Typically a field of a few tens of milligauss is sufficient for measuring a horizontal
trap frequency. In the quantum reflection experiment, the angular trap frequencies are
typically held at in the range of (ωz , ωx , ωy ) = 2π × (8, 4, 5) Hz or (6, 2, 2.5) Hz.

Condensates of 23 Na were transferred into the science chamber with optical tweezers
50Trap Depth (MHz)

2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
0

1

2
3
Anti-Bias Field Magnitude (Gauss)

4

5

Figure 2-17: Trap depth for the single coil vs. applied anti-bias field. Calculations are donewith a 1 cm diameter coil running 28 A, where z0 ≈ 1 cm.

in the usual way, described in Section 2.1.4. Once in position above the single coil, thecurrents in the single coil and the external bias coils were ramped up over 2 s after which
the power in the tweezers beam was ramped to zero over 2 s. Regardless of the desired final
trap frequencies, transfer was always done into the “compressed” trap with (ωz , ωx , ωy ) =2π × (8, 4, 5) Hz. Typically, the two traps would need to be aligned on a daily basis. The
horizontal alignment was more sensitive than the vertical alignment. Because the combined
single coil/tweezers trap was dominated by the optical potential of the tweezers, alignment
was monitored by looking for center of mass oscillations in the condensate after transfer.
The current in the single coil was adjusted to compensate for vertical misalignment andthe external x and y-bias fields were adjusted to compensate for horizontal misalignment.
Transfer into the single coil trap was nearly lossless, leading to approximately 5 × 105 atoms
in the trap.

Following the transfer into the single coil trap, the final trapping parameters were adjusted. The vertical trap position was adjusted first by increasing current in the single
coil. The anti-bias and horizontal bias fields also required slight adjustments during this“rising” stage. The timescale for rising, about 5 s followed by a 4 s hold time, was set by
the need to remain adiabatic with respect to the low trap frequency. The final horizontal
trap frequencies were then adjusted via adiabatic decompression by reducing the anti-bias
field over 5 s, as suggested by Figure 2-13. Again during decompression, the horizontal bias
fields were adjusted slightly to maintain the horizontal trapping position. In the second
quantum reflection experiment, the atoms could be delivered to the science chamber at thecorrect vertical position, owing to the translation of the surfaces, so only the decompression
stage was necessary.
51

Trap Depth (kHz)Trap Depth (kHz)

4

3

10
1
0.1
0.01

2

0.0

1.0
2.0
Trap Frequency (Hz)

3.0

1

0
0.0

0.2

0.4
0.6
Applied Bias Field (Gauss)

0.8

1.0

Figure 2-18: Trap depth for the single loop vs. applied bias in the “bias-free” trapping
region between 0.5R and 0.63R. Calculations are done with a 1 cm diameter coil running3.85 A, where z0 ≈ 0.3 cm. The inset shows how the trap depth varies with the trap
frequency as the bias field is applied.

For a single atom, it is possible to reduce the horizontal trap frequencies without limit.
However, for a condensate with mean-field interactions, the depth of the trap might ultimately limit decompression. Because for ρ > R, Vρ (ρ) falls to zero, the trap depth isdefined as the difference between the maximum of Vρ (ρ) and the on axis local minimum√Vρ (0). Because the radial trap frequency scales as Bρ′ / B0 and Bρ′ = Bz′ /2 is fixed, thetrap frequency can be reduced to zero by increasing the on axis bias field to zero.
First, we consider the case where the atoms are trapped at z > 0.63R, such that an antibias field is required to create a radial minimum on axis. There are two regimes determinedby the location of the trapping height relative to the singularity of Figure 2-13. When theanti-bias field is just sufficient to provide a radial trapping potential, the trap depth dueto the quartic term in the potential Vρ is already significant, approximately h×500 kHz.
Increasing the anti-bias field will decrease B0 on axis and increase the trap depth until
the singularity reaches the trapping point, as shown in Figure 2-17. Further increasing theanti-bias field beyond this point will gradually decrease the trap frequency to zero while
maintaining substantial trap depth (∼ 2 MHz at Banti = ∞). For comparison, the verticaltrap depth, which is asymmetric due to gravity, is approximately 17 MHz in the −ẑ direction
and infinite in the +ẑ direction.

Trap depth limitation during decompression is more significant when the trap is operated
in the “bias-free” region between 0.5R and 0.63R, that is, where a bias field need not be
52Trap Geometry
Magnetic trap (evaporation)
ODT (tweezers)
Atom Chip trap
Single coilSingle coil (decompressed)

ω/2π (Hz)(20, 200, 200)
(4, 440, 440)
(10, 2000, 2000)(8, 4, 4)(2, 1, 1)

N (atoms)
107
2 × 106
106
106
105

TC (nK)
1000
500
1500
25
2

n0 (cm−3 )3 × 1014
1014
1015
5 × 1012
5 × 1010

Table 2.2: A comparison of parameters for the various trapping geometries used in the
Science Chamber. The parameters are the typical angular trap frequency ω, the typicalcondensate atom number N , the condensate transition temperature TC and the central
atom number density n0 .

applied to achieve a 3D trapping potential. When decompression is attempted in this regime
by applying a bias field (as opposed to an anti-bias field), the trap frequencies are reduced
to zero at the expense of the trap depth, as shown in Figure 2-18. The opposite sign of thequartic term in Btot is responsible for the limiting trap depth, a difference which can beseen by comparing the insets of Figure 2-12 and Figure 2-13.

2.2.4

Further applications of the single-coil trap

The single coil trap provides unique access to ultra-low temperatures and ultra-low densities,
as shown in Table 2.2. Low temperatures and densities are useful for precision metrology,
where Doppler broadening and collisional broadening and line shifts must be controlled.
When the number density is so low, on the order of 1011 cm−3 , the interactions between
atoms in a condensate are drastically reduced. Reducing interactions has proved useful insome atom interferometry schemes [186, 76]. The single coil also provides support against
gravity with minimal radial confinement, which may be useful for lattice experiments where
external harmonic confinement is undesirable.

2.3

Modifications for dual species work

In 2006, one of the major frontiers cold atom physics lay in the merging of two recently
developed fields: optical lattice potentials for ultracold gases and well controlled interactions
with ultracold fermions. As a group, BEC III realized that, while high quality physics
remained in studies of pure BEC, the best direction for the lab was to put fermions in
optical lattices. Preliminary studies in this field were, literally, surrounding us in the major
results of BEC I [196], BEC II [19], and BEC IV [28]. Not wanting to fall behind ourhall mates, and with a cautious optimism that defines any major operation, we decided to
upgrade our machine to incorporate fermionic lithium [57].
The Science Chamber apparatus is ideally suited for the demands of optical lattice53

science. Transfer to the science chamber should be possible for ultracold fermions, possibly
for bosons and fermions simultaneously, and the auxiliary chamber can be reconfigured, as
was done in BEC IV [16], for optical lattices.
This section will detail a few of the upgrades made over the last year.

2.3.1

Multi-species oven

Lithium atoms were introduced to the vacuum system via a dual-species oven designed for
the BEC I experiment by Claudiu Stan [178, 177] which replaced the sodium oven [25]. The
basic design involves two isolated atomic sources which are connected by a small nozzle
which allows the species to mix. A second nozzle in the “mixing chamber” creates theeffusive beam that is coupled into the Zeeman slower. The system was so successful that
it was installed on the BEC II apparatus in 2004 and on our experiment in 2007. The
installation proceeded smoothly and the system appears to be robust.

2.3.2

Lithium laser table

Because ∼ 90% of the vacuum system remained unchanged, the major component of thelithium upgrade was the design and construction of the laser source. We considered two

schemes: a single source design involving a tapered amplifier and a distributed source designusing the recently developed Mitsubishi slave diodes. Both schemes were successfully in use
along the hallway; BEC I had developed the Mitsubishi diodes to viability and BEC II had
recently acquired a tapered amplifier system. At the time, neither system seemed to be theoverwhelming favorite, so, due to the availability of parts on the shelf, we chose to workwith the slave diode scheme.
In the slave diode scheme, a master laser (Toptica DL 100 grating stabilized diodelaser) generates ∼ 25 mW of optical power near the lithium D2 transition wavelength of
671 nm. Acousto-optic modulators are used to generate the various frequencies needed for
optical trapping, slowing and imaging. These low-power ∼ 3 mW beams are coupled intoslave diodes where they are amplified to high-power ∼ 100 mW, while retaining the narrowspectral characteristics of the master laser. The beams are then shaped, coupled into opticalfibers and transferred to the experiment. Details of the experimental techniques associatedwith maintaining the slave locking are found in the excellent Appendix of Ref. [66]. The
only major difference between our laser scheme and the one described in Ref. [66] is that
we use an EOM to generate repumping sidebands on the slower beam rather than using
modulating the slower slave diode. A schematic of the table is shown in Figure 2-19 and apicture is shown in Figure 2-6.
54

55

Fiber to
Lock

20MHz
EOM

Acousto-optic modulator

Optical fiber coupler

Optical islolator

D

0
L10

Fiber toWavemeter

228MHz EOMFiber toSlowerFibers to Imaging

Fiber to
MOT

Figure 2-19: Lithium laser table layout. Dashed beam lines derive from flipper mirrors and are typically not present on the table.

Polarizing beam splitter
MirrorFlipper mirror (for beam analysis)
Lens
l/4
l/2

HeNe
reference

Fabry-PerotcavityLock
PhotodiodeLi vapor cell

AOM driver power supplies
During the development of the laser table, we were troubled with electronic noise in thefrequency range of 20-100 kHz. Eventually, we traced the problem to switching power
supplies in use in the AOM drivers we had built and were able to mitigate the problem byexchanging the switching power supplies with linear power supplies. Linear power supplies
generate voltages by step-down transforming an AC line, then rectifying and regulating
the output voltage. Switching power supplies, in contrast, rectify the AC voltage directly
and use rapidly switched MOSFETs and capacitors to step down the DC voltages. The
switching rate is typically near 50 kHz. The output voltages of a switching power supply
are intended to float, and are not well referenced to ground as with a linear power supply,
i.e. the common output at 0 V is really a 5 V square wave at 30kHz.
Our analysis of the problem is this: there is nothing inherently wrong with switching
power supplies as long as care is taken to isolate the supply voltages from ground. If,
however, the isolation is done poorly, the lab ground can become seriously contaminatedwith high frequency noise. Since the main advantages of switching power supplies are
reduced cost and weight, the tradeoff does not favor their use in lab electronics.
Laser stabilization
During the construction of our laser table, a diploma student in BEC I, Peter Zarth, wasconstructing a similar laser table for use with potassium. Rather than use the typicalscheme for saturation absorbtion spectroscopy for referencing the laser to the atomic line,
Peter constructed a frequency modulated (FM) scheme. His success convinced us to try the
fm scheme on our lithium laser table. Our success has further convinced both BEC I and
BEC II to switch their lithium spectroscopy as well. Peter’s thesis provides some details on
the implementation of fm spectroscopy [194].
Saturated absorbtion spectroscopy is a well-understood technique for extracting a narrow atomic feature from a severely Doppler broadened sample. In a hot (∼ 100◦ C) vapor
cell, the spread in atomic velocity causes the cell to scatter a near-resonant “probe” laser
over a line-width determined by the temperature of the cell (∼ 1 GHz) rather than the
shape of the underlying atomic transition, which typically is much narrower (∼ 10 MHz).
The narrow spectral features can be recovered if the atoms of a particular velocity classhave their transition saturated by a strong “pump” beam, sent counter propagating to theprobe beam. The absorbtion of the probe beam will be the same except when the beamis resonant with the saturated atoms. Then, the absorbtion of the probe beam will be
reduced as the two beams “compete” to excite the same atoms. The width of features in asaturated scheme are determined by the line-shape of an individual atom rather than the
hot ensemble.
56

Saturated absorbtion spectroscopy provides a minimum when a resonance condition issatisfied by the pump and probe beams. However, locking to a minimum is inconvenient.
How, for example, do you tell which way the frequency is drifting or when the “minimum”
has been reached? The differentiation of the signal is accomplished by introducing some sortof frequency modulation, thereby sampling a small region near the center frequency. The
frequency modulation is detected in the probe beam and interpreted as the derivative at thecenter frequency through lock-in detection. In the typical saturated absorbtion spectroscopy
scheme, the frequency modulation is applied to the pump beam by an AOM modulated at∼ 20 kHz. In the FM scheme, the frequency modulation is applied to the probe beam by

an EOM driven at ∼ 20 MHz. For the FM scheme, the derivative is more “non-local”, but,due to its high frequency, provides a higher signal to noise ratio.

The FM spectroscopy scheme is visible in the upper left hand corner of Figure 2-19.
Approximately 2 mW of light from the master laser is frequency shifted and delivered by
optical fiber to the lock region where it is divided roughly evenly into pump and probe
beams. The probe beam has sidebands at 20 MHz added (the frequency modulation)
before being sent, counter-propagating to and overlapping with the pump beam, through alithium vapor cell [177]. The probe beam is then detected on a fast photodiode (Thorlabs
part number PDA10A).
The signal detected on the photodiode depends on the relative phase and intensity ofthe sidebands on the probe beam. When the laser falls on the photodiode,the sidebands
interfere, modulating the laser intensity at the sideband frequency. The amplitude of thein-phase component of the modulation can be interpreted as the derivative of the absorbtion
line. The phase is detected by a home built lock-in amplifier described in Ref [58] and used
to provide an error signal to a PID controller (Toptica PID110).
Extracting a good signal from the fm spectroscopy lock has proved difficult. Eliminating
electronic noise from the system by (1) grounding one plate of the EOM to the optics table,(2) separating the rf amplifier from the detection electronics, (3) adjusting the length ofcable in the detection electronics, (4) shaping the pump and probe beam with an opticalfiber, and (5) filtering higher harmonics from the photodiode signal have all helped to
improve the error signal. In the end, we are able to lock the laser for long periods of time.
The quality of the lock will be determined when we have ultracold lithium atoms to diagnose
the laser line-width.

2.3.3

Large bias-field generation

One immediate requirement for future work in BEC III is control over the atom-atominteractions. As has been shown in recent years, the easiest way to control atom-atominteractions is by adjusting the magnetic bias field to raise the energy of a bound molecu57

Curvature Coils
Anti-Bias Coils
MOT Coils

Bias (G/A)
3.00
3.05
3.82

Gradient (G/cm/A)
0.50
1.46
1.23

Curvature (G/cm2 /A)
0.86-0.081
0.40

Table 2.3: Fields, gradients, and curvatures generated by the main chamber magnetic trap.

lar state near threshold. Two atoms colliding at near zero velocity are resonant with themolecular state. The presence of this “Feshbach resonance” strongly influences the scattering, and hence, the strength of inter-atomic interactions. Experiments have shown useful
Feshbach resonances for Na-Na scattering at 907 G [78], for Li-Li at 822 G [39], and for
Na-Li 746, 760, and 796 G [179].
Ultimately, we anticipate that the majority of future experiments will be performed in
the science chamber where new coils can be designed and installed for the sole purpose ofgenerating kilogauss fields. In the mean time, this work could be performed in the mainchamber. In this section, we discuss how the main chamber magnetic trap might generatethese magnetic fields with little modification.
Fields from the magnetic trap
Helmholtz coils are a pair of co-axial current carrying loops of radius R which are separated
by a distance R. When the current is run in the same direction in both loops (“Helmholtz”
configuration), the on-axis field halfway between the loops is uniform, having no gradientor curvature. When the currents are run in the opposite directions (“anti-Helmholtz”
configuration), the gradient is uniform, having no bias field or curvature. Spacing the loops
closer (further) than R retains the behavior of the on-axis central bias-field and gradientin either configuration, but adds a positive (negative) curvature to the field in Helmholtz
configuration. Pictures and schematics of the Science Chamber magnetic trap in Figure 25, show 3 pairs of co-axial coils in near Helmholtz configuration: the curvature coils, theanti-bias coils, and the MOT (quadrupole) coils. In reality, the coils, with average radius
26 mm, 63 mm, and 46 mm, are spaced at 69 mm, 39 mm, and 67 mm respectively suchthat none of them will provide a curvature-free bias field. The bias-fields and curvatures
provided by these coils in Helmholtz wiring and the gradients provided in anti-Helmholtz
configuration are given in Table 2.3.
These coils are currently wired as shown in Figure 2-5. In this configuration, the curvature and anti-bias coils combine to provide (nearly) bias-free curvature by being wired
in Helmholtz configuration, but it the opposite direction from each other so that the bias
fields cancel out. If the wiring of the trap were re-configured such that current could be
provided to either the curvature coils or the anti-bias coils, running ∼ 300 A in either pair58

would produce a bias field near 1000 G with a curvature of ∼250 G/cm2 or ∼-25 G/cm2 .
The second would be preferable for working with lithium atoms in the ground state [195].

As an alternative, a zero curvature bias field of 1000 G can be generated by running current
in the curvature and the anti-bias coils in a ratio of ∼ 1 : 10, such that the curvature iscanceled. A similar current of ∼ 300 A would be required.
Thermal management of coils
The wire comprising the magnetic trap is low resistance, ∼ 2.5 mΩ/m, however, becauseof the lengths involved with winding the coils (∼ 5 m) and the high currents necessary

to generate tight confinement (∼ 100 A), significant power is dissipated (∼ 200 W). Thispower is dissipated by a stream of water constantly circulated through the coils. During
evaporation, the circulating water is warmed by about 3◦ C from an initial temperature of ∼20◦ C. Because the Feshbach fields require currents approximately 3 times larger, the power

dissipated will increase by an order of magnitude, as will the rise in water temperature.
We anticipate a final water temperature near 50◦ C when 300 A is run through either thecurvature or anti-bias coils.
It is unfortunate that this puts us within a factor of 2 of catastrophic coil failure (whenthe circulating water boils), even more-so given the crude nature of the temperature measurements. Care must be taken when first raising the current to ensure that the heat load
does not overwhelm the system. In the event that sufficient field cannot be achieved witha single set of coils, it would be possible to split the current amongst all three sets of coils(curvature, anti-bias, and MOT). Because the field scales linearly with current, but thepower dissipated scales with the square of the current, this operation should be failsafe.
With 100 A running in each coil, we obtain a total bias field of ∼ 1000 G and a curvature of∼ 100 G/cm2 . The positive curvature would need compensation when working with groundstate lithium atoms, e.g. by optical dipole forces.
Precision control of bias fields
Because atomic properties vary so strongly with magnetic field near the Feshbach resonance,
it is crucial that the magnetic field be stable and reproducible. A stabilization scheme
described in Ref [37] was implemented first in BEC II [24] and later in BEC I. The scheme isthis: a power supply run in voltage control mode will provide an arbitrary current dependingon the resistance presented. The current is controlled by an IGBT operating in the regimeof linear resistance. A PID controller maintains the current through the coil (as measured
by a hall probe) at the desired set point by changing the resistance of the IGBT.
Finally, it is useful to maintain the bulk of the bias field with a single set of coils andprovide tuning with a second coil set. This is simple for us to accomplish by re-wiring the59Helmholtz to Anti-Helmholtz MOSFET Box

MOTCoil A
MOT
Power
SupplyFeshbach
Power
SupplyMOT
Coil B

Figure 2-20: Schematic of MOT control box. MOSFET switches, boxed in either grey orwhite are to be switched simultaneously. For the MOT fields, the coils run in anti-Helmholtz
configuration. For Feshbach tuning fields, the coils run in Helmholtz. TTL controls for thebox are not shown.

MOT coils to run in Helmholtz as opposed to anti-Helmholtz configuration. A schematicfor the control box is shown in Figure 2-20.
The proposed wiring of the magnetic trap, shown in Figure 2-21 integrating these control
schemes. The major electronic components have been assembled, but at the time of thiswriting, not installed in the apparatus.

60Curvature
Coils"Bias"
Power supply"Curvature"
Power supply"Feshbach"Power supply

Anti-bias
Coils

Feedback
IGBT

Hall
Probe
PID

Figure 2-21: The proposed wiring configuration for the magnetic trap includes additional
power supplies and control IGBTs to allow the production of 1 kG bias fields. In parallel
to each power supply is the associated “de-bounce” circuit. The “curvature” and “bias”
power supplies are labeled according to lab terminology for clarity.

61

62

Chapter 3

Quantum Reflection Theory
Mechanics is concerned with the propagation of particles subject to forces or external potentials. Newton’s first and second laws are sufficient to describe classical motion: (1) in theabsence of a force, a particle will continue in its motion indefinitely, and (2) when subject
to a force an object will accelerate at a rate proportional to the force and inversely proportional to the mass. In terms of potentials, an object with kinetic energy E (at zero potential
energy) is confined to regions of potential less than or equal to E. Points where the potential energy is equal to E are known as the classical turning points, as shown in Figure 3-1.
In an elastic collision, an object approaching a classical turning point is observed to slow
as kinetic energy is converted to potential energy, then to reverse direction and accelerateaway from the turning point as the potential energy is released. This process is known as
reflection. Reflection may be gradual, as in the case of a ball reversing its motion at the
top of its arc, or pronounced, as in the case of a ball bouncing off of a hard wall.
Reflection is also associated with the propagation of excitations, either electromagnetic
waves, such as light from a mirror, or matter waves, like sound or ocean waves. As these
excitations propagate through a medium, they do so without significant motion of themedium in the direction of propagation, eg. sound is not carried by individual atoms in
the air. The character of the propagation, i.e. the speed, dispersion, etc. depend on thecharacter of the medium, e.g. light travels faster in a vacuum than through a piece ofglass. We require that the excitation satisfy a continuity equation at all points, so when themedium changes, the details of the excitation must change as well. Whenever an excitation
meets the boundary of a medium, the excitation can be entirely or partially reflected. The
classic example is a beam of light propagating through partially silvered mirror; light divided
at the interface into a transmitted beam and a reflected beam.
Quantum mechanics is concerned with the propagation of quantum mechanical wavefunctions subject to external potentials. Because a matter wavefunction exhibits both wave
and particle properties, we expect that the process of reflection in quantum mechanics may
63

U(x)

U(x)
Turning points forhigh kinetic energy

Classical
turning points

Turning points forlow kinetic energy

Region of strong
quantum reflection

Figure 3-1: Classical turning points confine a classical object to a region of space. The
position of a classical turning point depends on the kinetic energy of the object, as shownin the left panel. Regions of strong quantum reflection, shown on the right, exist where thepotential changes abruptly relative to the kinetic energy and the de Broglie wavelength ofthe particle.

show characteristics of both Newtonian reflection and of excitation reflection. This is indeed the case. Quantum mechanical reflection is similar to Newtonian reflection because
it involves the propagation of matter, not an excitation. Further, it is easily shown thatthe behavior of wavefunctions at classical turning points is is the same as the behavior ofa classical particle. However, the quantum treatment of propagation resembles mathematically the propagation of excitations, and the wavefunction can become divided via partialreflection when the propagation medium, that is, the potential, changes sharply, as shownin Figure 3-1. Specifically, the quantum treatment reveals the partial reflection of a particle wavefunction without the presence of a classical turning point, a phenomenon called
quantum reflection.
This chapter addresses the theoretical treatment of reflection of cold (quantum) atoms
from surfaces and reviews the current state of research on the reflecting of atoms fromsurfaces. I will begin with the most basic treatment of quantum mechanical reflection
and progress rapidly to an “experimentalist’s” view of quantum reflection from a real solid
surface. Along the way, I will touch on some the subtler points of current quantum reflection
theory.

3.1

Quantum scattering from a 1-D potential

The general question we wish to address is: “How does a spatially isolated potential affect a freely propagating particle wavefunction?” Answers to this question can be used todetermine the scattering properties of atoms, the decay of radioactive particles, and thebulk interactions between atoms in a gas in addition to the reflection properties of surfaces. According to J. J. Sakurai, “it is impossible to overemphasize the importance of this
topic” [150]. The one-dimensional case is the simplest, free from considerations of angular64momentum.
Quantum reflection can be understood by starting with a canonical first year quantum
mechanics problem and generalizing to the semi-classical propagation of wavefunctions. As
quantum reflection represents the breakdown of classical behavior, we will see that quantum
reflection occurs when the semi-classical approximation fails [30, 110, 22, 120, 55, 114, 29,
56].

3.1.1

Barrier scattering

The canonical freshman quantum mechanics problem involves the scattering of a particle
from a one dimensional barrier of height V [36]. In this case, the potential is fixed andsolutions to the Schrödinger equation
h̄2 2
−
∇ +V
2m

!

Ψ = ıh̄

∂Ψ
∂t

(3.1)

take on the particularly simple form of a stationary state multiplied by a phase factor
Ψ(r, t) = ψ(r)e−ı Et/h̄ . The time-dependence can be eliminated and the result is the time
independent Schrödinger equation
h̄2 2
−
∇ +V
2m

!

ψ = Eψ

(3.2)

Solutions to the time independent Schrödinger equation take the form of plane waves ofwavevector k, with k2 = 2m(E − V )/h̄2 where m is the particle mass and h̄ is Planck’s

constant, h, divided by 2π. In the event that V > E, the wavevector is imaginary and,instead of a plane wave, the solution is exponential decay or growth.
In the simplest barrier scattering case, a particle is incident on an infinitely sharp stepto a classically forbidden region. We consider 3 wavevectors in our solution, the forward
and backward propagating wavevectors (k and −k)in the classically allowed region andthe exponentially damped wavevector (−ık) in the classically forbidden region. The step
represents a classical turning point and the solution of the Schrödinger equation reveals
that the amplitude of the reflected wave is equal to the amplitude of the incoming wave,
just as we expect classically (see Figure 3-2).
Suppose the particle is assumed to approach the infinitely sharp potential step with
sufficient kinetic energy to be classically allowed in either half space (see Figure 3-2). On
either side of the boundary, the wavefunction takes the form of a traveling wave. At theboundary, the potential changes abruptly and to satisfy the requirements that the wavefunction and its first derivative be continuous, we include a third traveling wave. This
reflected component has the opposite wavevector of the incident component. The reflection65

Psi(x)

Psi(x)

V(x)

V(x)

KE

KE
Figure 3-2: Left panel: The quantum mechanical treatment of a potential barrier reproduces
the classical behavior if the barrier height exceeds the kinetic energy of the particle. The
incoming particle (black solid) will penetrate the barrier slightly (red dotted), but thereflected amplitude (blue dashed) is equal to the incoming amplitude.
Right panel: The quantum mechanical treatment of a potential step reproduces the classicalbehavior of accelerating or decelerating the particle, but introduces the novel behavior
of dividing the wavefunction into transmitted (red dotted) and reflected (blue dashed)components. This behavior is more akin to the splitting of an excitation at a medium
boundary and a direct consequence of the wave nature of matter. We interpret the partialreflection as a probability of the particle being reflected from the potential step.

and transmission probability are easily found as
B 2
R=
=
A
T =

C 2
=
A





2

=



2 

k′
k



=

1 − k′ /k
1 + k′ /k2
1 + k′ /k

2

(3.3)

4kk′
(k + k′ )2(3.4)

k − k′
k + k′

where k (k′ ) is the wavevector in the region of space where the potential equals zero (V).
The partial reflection of the wavefunction may be interpreted as the probability that theincoming particle was reflected.
Of particular interest is that Equation 3.3 applies to both a positive potential stepof amplitude V < E and a negative potential step (potential drop). Neither of theseis a classical turning point. Unlike the mechanical reflection due to insufficient energy topenetrate a barrier, the partial reflection of the wavefunction at a step or drop is interpreted
as a demonstration of the wave nature of matter. In the limit of a large step, k ≫ k′ andthe probability of reflection goes to unity. This general feature of quantum reflection ispreserved in the generalization to an arbitrary barrier.
66

3.1.2Threshold behavior

Briefly, we remark that the sophisticated theoretical apparatus we are about to construct is
not necessary to understand the threshold behavior of quantum reflection. The expressions√
R and T in Equation 3.3 can be expanded for small values of k ∝ E. The results,

R ≃ 1−4k/k′ and T ≃ 4k/k′ show that as the incident wavevector falls to zero, the reflection√
probability approaches unity as 1 − E with a proportionality constant determined by k′ ,which depends on the details of the potential barrier [101, 22].

3.1.3

Numeric solutions for quantum reflection

In general, the 1D scattering problem is not analytic. The sharp barrier is simple because
the time independent Schrödinger equation can be solved exactly at all points in space andthe free coefficients matched at the discontinuity. However, when the scattering potential
is continuous, this strategy becomes intractable for most potentials1 . An alternative is
to assume that the wavefunction has a particular form at one point in space and use the
Schrödinger equation to develop the wavefunction spatially. For a potential confined toa region a −a < x < a, and a particle incident from the right (that is, from +∞), with
sufficient energy to propagate in the region −∞ < x < −a will couple to two states after

interaction: a transmitted state propagating toward −∞ and a reflected state propagating
toward +∞. By beginning in the region −∞ < x < −a with a forward traveling wave,

propagating the solution through the region −a < x < a, and, finally, decomposing thesolution in the region a < x < ∞ into forward traveling and backward traveling waves, thereflection probability can be calculated numerically for a given incident energy. An exampleof the propagated wavefunction in a 1/r 4 potential is shown in Figure 3-3.
This is the approach, described at length in Christian Sanner’s Diploma thesis [151] andin Ref. [55, 114], that we will use to calculate the reflection probability for the CasimirPolder potential.

3.1.4

The badlands function

There is an alternative, analytic technique for understanding semi-quantitatively quantum
reflection from an arbitrary potential. The WKB or semi-classical approximation of the
propagating wavefunction takes the form:

1

R
i
1
ψWKB (x) = pe± h̄ p(x)dxp(x)

Although, interestingly, the function −sech(x)2 has an analytic solution.

67

(3.5)

Potential, Amplitude Psi, Amplitude Badlands

0

2

4

6

8

Distance from surface (micron)Figure 3-3: The solution to the Schrödinger equation (solid line) for a 1/r 4 potential (dottedline) and the amplitude of the associated badlands function (dashed line) are the diagnostics
for quantum reflection, as described in the text.

where p(x) =p

2m(E − V (x)) is the momentum of a mass m particle with energy E trav-

eling in a potential V (x) [15, 62]. This wavefunction is a good approximation of the true
wavefunction ψ(x) when the energy of the particle need not be treated quantum mechanically, i.e. where the kinetic energy is large and the particle wavelength is small relative tochanges in the potential. If this is not the case, we expect that the WKB approximation
will fail and quantum behavior will become relevant.
The second derivative of ψWKB differs from the Schrödinger equation by a term B(x)p(x)2 ψWKB
where B(x) is the badlands function given by
B(x) =

1 3p′ (x)2p′′ (x)[−]p(x)2 4p(x)2
2p(x)

(3.6)

which must be small for the WKB approximation to remain valid [55]. Wherever this term
grows large, we find that the semiclassical treatment is poor. Figure 3-3 shows the thebadlands for the a sample 1/r 4 potential.
For the purposes of quantum reflection, we will consider the point where the badlands
function is a maximum to be the point where reflection occurs and the magnitude of thatmaximum to be an indication of the reflection probability. The form of the badlands function
indicates that this point will occur when there is change in potential, through p′ and p′′ ,which is large relative to the local momentum of the particle. Both terms tend to grow68

large at the same point and the essential physics is retained by focusing only the first term:
λ(x) =

p(x)′mV ′ (x)
=
≪1
p(x)2
p(x)3

(3.7)

which has a maximum when V ′ (x)2 /V ′′ (x) = p(x)2 /3m. The situation where λ′ = 1
corresponds to the particle wavelength, λ, increasing by λ (a factor of 2) over a distance of
λ and the breakdown of the WKB approximation.
By plugging the expression for the maximum of λ′ back into the Schrödinger equation,
we arrive at an expression relating V to E. Here we find that the maximum value for theαfailure occurs when V (x) = − 2(α+1)
α−2 E when the potential takes the form V (x) = −Cα /x .

This expression suggests that quantum reflection will not occur when α < 2, that is, forpotentials which do not fall off faster than 1/r 2 . Bearing in mind that quantum reflection

does not really occur at a single point, this expression can also be used to determine the“point” of reflection, r◦ ≃ (Cα /E)1/α . The value for λ′ can be evaluated at this point; the−1/αresult will in general depend on the incident energy as Cα

E −1/α . Thus, higher reflection

probabilities are associated with lower incident energy and smaller Cα coefficients.
It is curious that weaker potentials with smaller Cα will exhibit greater quantum reflection; for the sharp step, quantum reflection from a smaller potential drop is smaller.
Why doesn’t the power law potential behave like the sharp step? The difficulty with powerlaw potentials is that they have no characteristic length scale. However, because reflection
is strongest when the magnitude of the potential is roughly equal to the particle’s initial
kinetic energy, there is a length scale associated with the particle energy. For a given kinetic energy, this length scale is shorter for a weaker potential, that is, the magnitude of
the potential reaches the initial kinetic energy closer to the origin. As any inverse powerlaw potential falls to −∞ at the origin, the weaker potential appears “sharper” due to theshorter length scale, and hence exhibits strong quantum reflection.

3.2

Reflection of cold atoms from a solid surface

The interaction between a classical atom and a solid surface is inelastic scattering. Whenthe atom reaches the short-range repulsive potential of the surface, it interacts with themany degrees of freedom in the surface where it may gain or lose energy. If the atom loses
energy, it may not have sufficient energy to escape the attraction of the van der Waals
attraction and is adsorbed on the surface in a bound state. If the surface is sufficiently
warm, the atom will eventually be ejected from the surface [101, 22]. Evidence for thisbehavior, which predicts that classical atoms will reach thermal equilibrium with confining
surfaces, is as close as the radiator or refrigerator; both devices rely on the thermalizationof surfaces and gases. Quantum reflection subverts this behavior by suppressing the overlap
69

0

Reflection Probability

10
10
10
10
10
10

-1

-2

-3

-4

-5

0

5

10
Incident Velocity (mm/s)

1520

Figure 3-4: Numerically calculated reflection probability for sodium incident on the pure
Casimir-Polder potential of a silicon surface (upper curve) and the un-retarded van der
Waals potential of a silicon surface (lower curve). The range of velocities plotted extends
from ∼ 1 nK to ∼ 1 µK.

of the incoming atomic wavefunction and the bound states of the atom-surface potential.
Having provided a general framework for understanding quantum reflection, we turn
our attention to the specific case of atoms incident on the Casimir-Polder potential of asolid surface. As discussed in Chapter 1 Section 5, the dominant interaction between aneutral atom and a solid surface is the fluctuating dipole-dipole interaction. This potential
is long-range attractive and takes the form VC−P = −C4 /r 4 . In the following calculations

use C4 = C4Si = 6.2 × 10−56 Jm4 , calculated in Ref [192]. Our use of the purely retarded

form of the atom-surface potential is justified a posteriori by the observation that the pointof reflection as defined by the badlands function resides entirely in the region r > c/ω0 andr < λT , as discussed in Section 1.2.
Using the techniques discussed above, we can analyze the atom surface interaction to see
when we anticipate significant reflection of an incoming atomic wavefunction. First, using
the analysis of the badlands function, we find that reflection of atoms at 10 nK (∼ 3 mm/s)
occurs approximately 1 µm away from the surface, while reflection of atoms at 1 muK(∼ 30 mm/s) occurs at roughly 0.25 µm, well into the region where the region where thepotential is well approximated by the pure Casimir-Polder potential [55]. Second, using thefull numeric treatment [165, 151], we calculate a reflection probability that approaches unity
as the velocity approaches zero, shown in Figure 3-4. This figure also shows the reflection
probability from the potential VvdW = −C3 /r 3 , with C3 = 6.9 × 10−49 as the van der Waals

coefficient2 .
2This value is C4 /( 23 π 2 λ), where λ = 589 nm is the wavelength of sodium [55].

70The effect of resonances
In the previous section, the quantum treatment of the atom-surface potential focused on
the long-range attractive tail and ignored the short-range repulsive potential and the boundstates it hosts; only in the classical treatment of the atom-surface interaction did the boundsurface states come into the discussion. However, it is possible for a surface excitation toresonantly connect an unbound state to a bound state. Resonances play a major role indetermining scattering behavior, as was discussed in Section 2.3.3.
A more sophisticated treatment of quantum reflection uses a potential which can support
the bound states into which non-quantum reflected atoms can become adsorbed [30, 120, 29].
What happens if one of these bound states is close to zero energy? The solid surface
itself has numerous degrees of freedom, and a correspondingly high density of low-energy
states which could connect an incident atom to a deeply bound state. What role does theinternal structure of the surface play in quantum reflection? An excellent discussion of these
problems, and of reflection processes in general is presented in Ref. [120]. The general result
is: when an isolated resonance exists at threshold, either a bound state with zero energy
or a bound state connected by a surface mode, it will play a role in reducing the reflection
probability. However, this case is exceedingly rare, and typically the many resonances nearthreshold couple the incoming atomic state to the rapidly decohering internal states ofthe surface leading to no net effect, and quantum reflection proceeds without concern forresonant adsorbtion.

71

72

Chapter 4

Normal Incidence Quantum
Reflection
This chapter supplements work reported in the following publication, included in Appendix B:• T. A. Pasquini, Y. Shin, C. Sanner, M. Saba, A. Schirotzek, D. E. Pritchard, and W. Ketterle,“Quantum reflection form a solid surface at normal incidence”, PRL 93, 223201 (2004).

The quantum interactions between atoms and surfaces has become increasingly important in recent years; atom chips confine BEC within a few µm of surfaces [130, 50, 146, 47],
atom-surface interactions are being used to place limits on short-range Yukawa potentials [70], material diffraction gratings are an important component in precision interferometry experiments [134, 135], and a growing field of atom optics searches for novel devices
to manipulate and control ultracold atoms [144, 143, 51, 52]. Finally, quantum reflection,
as discussed in Chapter 3, is one of the most basic and beautiful demonstrations of the
wave nature of matter and the power of nano-kelvin temperatures to uncover fundamental
physics.
This Chapter contains a review of previous experiments studying quantum reflection anddetails of the first observation of normal incidence quantum reflection with alkali atoms. The√
major result is the observation of 1− E, threshold dependence of the reflection probability
at normal incidence for atoms with velocity from 1-10 mm/s. Further, atoms were held ina trap divided in half by a solid surface.

4.1

Previous work on quantum reflection

The only requirements to observe quantum reflection are a population of atoms with wellcontrolled atomic velocity and a detector sensitive to the reflected fraction. However, be73

cause reflection drops off so quickly with increasing incident energy, quantum reflection has
been studied primarily in two settings: (1) the scattering of helium and hydrogen off ofliquid helium surfaces, and (2) with atomic beams incident on surfaces at grazing incidence.
The first scenario is favorable because of the anomalously weak interactions of liquid helium
and the availability of cryogenically cooled hydrogen and helium. The second scenario uses
the small transverse velocity of a collimated atomic beam to decrease incident energy while
maintaining high atom flux.
For the interaction of helium or hydrogen atoms on liquid helium, specular reflection canbe observed at temperatures below a few K; threshold quantum reflection, which displays the√appropriate E scaling occurs at temperatures below 100 mK. Some experiments involve
generating a pulsed effusive beam of helium by localized heating and then detecting thepulse as it travels either directly to a bolometer or is specularly reflected off a helium
surface [46, 122]. Other experiments pre-trap and cool a population of hydrogen atoms
before allowing one wall of the trap to be replaced by a liquid helium surface; the resulting
atom loss rate can be used as a measure of the reflectivity of the helium [41, 193]. Extensive
theoretical work [44, 45, 18] and experimental efforts [122, 191] on the helium-liquid heliuminteraction have helped to clarify the initial work of Ref. [46]. Similar work was done withhydrogen incident on liquid helium surfaces, first at high energy where threshold quantum
reflection behavior was not observed [14, 13] and later in the threshold regime [41, 73, 193].
Of particular note is the work of Ref. [13] where, working in a regime where the sticking
probability varied linearly with energy [14], hydrogen was focused by a concave liquid He
surface. Theoretical work with liquid He is complicated, however, by the presence of riplon
modes in the liquid surface and by the fact that, being a liquid, the “surface” of liquid He
is poorly defined.
The second class of quantum reflection experiments, grazing incidence thermal beams
on solid surfaces, has received more attention in recent years. In a typical experiment, ahighly collimated beam of thermal atoms impinges on a surface at angles of 80◦ -90◦ , suchthat the velocity normal to the surface is a tenth to a thousandth of the beam velocity [2,165, 67, 42, 126]. Such experiments are ideally suited for studying quantum reflection as
the incident velocity can be easily varied over orders of magnitude and, due to the highflux of atoms, the reflection probability can be accurately measured down to the 10−6 level
where quantum reflection occurs in the non-retarded region of the potential [42].
Grazing incidence experiments also allow the study of a wide range of surfaces, including
micro and nano-structured surfaces which demonstrate enhanced reflectivity. In Ref. [166],
silicon surfaces were etched to create a series of parallel ridges which were oriented perpendicular to the incident beam. The surface showed a greatly enhanced reflection. One
interesting side effect of periodically structured surfaces is the introduction of a wavevector
74ksurf parallel to the transverse wavevector of the atomic beam. Instead of pure specularreflection, atoms may also diffract from the surface, gaining or losing ksurf , thereby increasing or decreasing the reflection angle relative to the incident angle. This effect was used todemonstrate an interferometric “hologram” with quantum reflection [167].
A simple model to explain the enhanced quantum reflection due to structured surfaces
is an effective reduction in the C3 and C4 coefficients which reduces the strength of thereflection potential, as discussed in Section 3.1.4. A more detailed analysis of the reflection
from ridged surfaces suggests that other physics is involved, namely, Fresnel diffraction of
the atomic beam [125, 95] 1 . In this theory, the diffraction orders from the ridges will
add constructively to create the specularly reflected beam. There is little dependence on
the details of the atom-surface potential and the model is in good agreement with theobservations for grazing incidence beams.
Some experiments and theoretical models with evanescent waves have explored atomsurface interactions and quantum reflection. Aspect’s group found effects of the attractive
van der Waals potential when studying reflection from a repulsive evanescent wave opticalpotential at normal incidence [97], an effect discussed at length in . references [163, 33]. In
an interesting modification to the typical blue-detuned (repulsive) evanescent wave mirror,
reference [72] discusses quantum reflection from a purely attractive red-detuned evanescentwave. In related work, reflection from the periodic potential of blue-detuned 1D opticallattice was studied in the context of quantum reflection [54].

4.2

History of quantum reflection experiments at MIT

Quantum reflection experiments have a history at MIT2 . The first observations of quantum
reflection were made in the early 1990’s by Tom Greytek and Dan Kleppner by measuring
the sticking probability3 of evaporatively cooled hydrogen on films of liquid helium [193]. An
earlier work by the same group, Ref. [41], was in the appropriate regime to observe quantum
reflection, but failed due to an insufficient coating of highly reflective liquid helium on the
poorly reflecting sinter surface [73]. These studies led to a resurgence in theoretical treatments of quantum sticking near threshold which have generally converged to the accepted
picture presented in Chapter 3.
When the first result of threshold quantum reflection from solid surfaces were reported
1

A similar analysis may be performed by considering reflection as occurring due to the rapid, repeatedmeasurement of the atom wavefunction on the outside of the grating. This Zeno effect analysis of quantum
reflection is useful for approximating the reflection, but does not contain some of the essential physics [94].
2
There are interesting parallels between the history of quantum reflection experiments at MIT and “family
tree of atomic physicists” that was widely publicized when the Nobel Prize in 2001 was shared by Carl
Wieman, Eric Cornell and Wolfgang Ketterle [88, 32]. One notable difference is the major contributions
made to the field with atomic beam quantum reflection by F. Shimizu who has no connection to the “tree”.
3
The sticking probability being the compliment of the reflection probability, S=1-R.

75

Vertical Position (Pixel)

410

Incident Atoms

400
390
380

Reflected Atoms

370
360
0

20

40
60
Hold Time (ms)

80

100

Figure 4-1: The first signature of normal incidence quantum reflection. For times between
30 and 45 ms, the positions of the centers of the two condensate blobs are given. The inset
shows the image for 32 ms. **This figure will be updated**by F. Shimizu in 2001 [165], the Ketterle group at MIT became interested in achieving unity
reflection of ultracold atoms from solid surfaces. The hope was that trapped BEC had suchwell controlled velocity that quantum reflection could be observed at normal incidence andcould possibly be useful for manipulating and even confining ultracold atoms. The firstround of experiments loaded into the science chamber included a modest piece of glass,mounted at 45◦ above the surface of the first atom chip. The experiment involved loading
atoms into the tweezers, translating to the science chamber and pushing the tweezers into
the glass slide. Quantum reflection would be observed as atoms being ejected perpendicular
to the trap due to the small trap depth. Unfortunately, no signal was observed. The negative
result was attributed to the velocity of atoms within the condensate was dominating thecenter of mass velocity when the collision was induced.
I arrived at MIT in the fall of 2002 when a new quantum reflection experiment was being
mounted. The single coil trap had been designed by Dave Kielpinski as a way of reducing
the speed of sound4 . Later that year, the single coil trap was installed in the science chamber∼ 1 cm below a plano-concave lens. The concave side was intended for use as a novel trap

in which quantum non-sticking would both support the atoms against gravity and confine
them radially, the flat side of the lens faced down and was intended for a conventional
study of normal incidence quantum reflection. Atoms were to be pushed upward into thesurface and reflect downward; the signature of reflection would be a sudden vertical shift
in the position of the atoms in time of flight, indicating they were moving downward, not4

Dave left the group before any result could be obtained with the trap.

76

(A)

(B)
SiliconAerogelPillared

Piezo

Single CoilFigure 4-2: Pictures of the (now retired) experimental setups for studying quantum reflection. The silicon substrate is missing in the left panel due to damage.

upward when the trap was turned off. We were able to observe the signature of quantum
reflection as shown in Figure 4-1, but moved on to other projects immediately afterward;
characterization of quantum reflection along this axis was difficult. Instead, we used thesingle coil to produce world record low temperatures [49, 99].
Encouraged by our preliminary result and hoping to capitalize on the very low horizontal
trap frequencies of the single coil, we designed a new set up in which a thin silicon substrate
was mounted above the single coil with its face parallel to the vertical axis, as shown in
Figure 4-2a. The success of this setup is described below. As a result of this work, a small
number of groups have developed numerical simulations of quantum reflection [162, 105]
to help explain the role that interactions and collective excitations play in the reflection ofcondensates.
As we were developing our work on normal incidence quantum reflection, Shimizu expanded on his original experiment by introducing structure to the surface, thereby modifying
the reflection potential and greatly enhancing the reflection probability [166, 167]. In our
next project on quantum reflection, we introduced several dilute surfaces into the sciencechamber, shown in Figure 4-2b. The aerogel with a mass density of 2% of glass and thenano-structured surface with mass density 1% of solid silicon were both expected to show
greatly enhanced reflection. The silicon surface from the first experiment was mounted
on a piezoelectric element so that its position could be rapidly varied in time, hopefully
averaging (and weakening) the potential of the surface. The successes (and failures) of thisexperiment are also discussed below.
77

(a)Surfaceyzgd

Si Surface(c)EnergySi Surface(b)xFigure 4-3: Panel (a) illustrates how atoms are confined near a solid surface above thesingle coil. Panel (b) and (c) illustrate the experimental techniques for studying quantum
reflection. Atoms initially confined a distance d from the surface undergo a dipole oscillation
when the trap center is shifted to the surface, as shown in (b). Atoms are loaded into
the surface trap by shifting the trap position halfway to the surface, allowing the dipole
oscillation to carry the atoms to the surface, then shifting the trap to confine the zero
velocity atoms against the surface, as shown in (c).

The ultimate limitations to quantum reflection with BEC, as discussed in Chapter 6
suggested further studies on the reflection of condensates. By the time the second projectwrapped up, however, we had decided to switch gears with the experiment. There are noplans to continue research on quantum reflection at this point.

4.3

Reflection at normal incidence

Observing quantum reflection with nano-kelvin temperature trapped atoms is fundamentally different than previous work with atomic beams. On the plus side, there is no need towork at grazing incidence as the mean velocity of atoms at 1 nK is less than 1 mm/s; theincident velocity must actually be increased by some other, easily controlled means, such as78

a center of mass oscillation. On the other hand nano-kelvin atoms cannot yet be produced
continuously [27] or in large quantities, so experiments must be pulsed and are limited toreflection coefficients greater than ∼ 1% unless extreme measures are taken in detection.

Furthermore, at low temperature and large number, atom clouds tend to be quite extended,so care must be taken in preparing the sample far from the surface5 .
A picture of the experimental setup is shown in Figure 4-2, and an experimental
schematic is shown in Figure 4-3. Bose-Einstein condensates of ∼ 5 × 105 23 Na atoms

are prepared in the usual fashion (see Chapter 2) and transferred into the potential minimum of a single coil trap (see Section 2.2). Approximately 1 cm above the coil, a ∼ 1× 1 cm

sample of the surface to be studied was mounted. Condensates were positioned ∼ 200 µm

away from the bottom edge of the face of the surface. Velocity perpendicular to the surface
was generated by shifting the trap minimum to be centered on the front face of the surface
by applying a bias field B⊥ (see Section 2.2.2). By changing the initial position of thetrap relative to the surface, velocities between 0.5 mm/s and 25 mm/s were achieved. We
attempted to use an actuator to move the surface into the stationary BEC, but could notcontrol the velocity sufficiently well (see Section 2.1.7).
Reflection probabilities are calculated as the ratio of atoms reflected from the surface toatoms incident on the surface, making quantitative measurements quite simple; because theabsolute number is unimportant, we can be a little careless in calibrating the imaging light.
Atoms were released from the trap and, when possible, the surface was removed from theimaging field. A pulse of light resonant with the F = 1 → F ′ = 2 transition was applied

to the atoms for 1 ms to pump atoms in the |F = 1i state into the |F = 2i state. Becauseof the high optical density of atoms in the incident cloud, after optical pumping, the atoms

were allowed to expand with their acquired photon recoil momentum for 2 ms. The cloud
was then imaged on the F = 2 → F ′ = 3 cycling transition.
Also of interest were excitations that might occur during quantum reflection of BoseEinstein condensates. For observing excitations, imaging was done with low intensity lighton the F = 1 → F ′ = 2 to obtain undistorted images.

4.4

Experimental results

The published experimental results of our work are included in Appendix B.

5Actually, “surface evaporation” [107, 69] helps to maintain the low temperature of the BEC after theexcitations from loading and decompressing the single coil trap have dissipated.

79

Reflection Probability

1

0.1

0.01

0

2

4
6
Incident Velocity

8

10

Figure 4-4: The reflection probability vs. incident velocity for sodium atoms reflecting off
a solid silicon surface. Theory curves are described in the text.

4.4.1

Reflection probability

Figure 4-4 is the major result of Ref. [133]. Vertical error bars show the standard deviationof six measurements and horizontal error bars show the uncertainty in the initial velocity.
The solid curve is the same as in Figure 3-4, the numerically calculated reflection probability
for sodium on solid silicon. Two “interesting” features caught our attention: the data are
better fit by increasing the C4 coefficient by a factor of two and the lowest velocity data do
not show threshold behavior, but rather saturate near 10%. Unraveling these mysteries was
the subject of our second experiment with quantum reflection and, incidentally, the subjectof the following two Chapters.

4.4.2

Quantum reflection surface trap

One of our original motivations for studying quantum reflection was for its potential use intrapping atoms [86, 193]. In the limit of zero incident velocity, a quantum reflecting surface
could be used to construct a physical container for BEC. Atoms were transferred into aharmonic trap centered on a surface so that confinement in one dimension was provided bya solid silicon surface, as described in Figure 4-3 and Ref. [133].
If the surface were perfectly absorbing, we would expect the atom number to fall to zero
within a half trap period, corresponding to ∼ 50 ms for the compressed trap and ∼ 150 ms
for the decompressed trap. That atoms remain in the trap beyond this time indicates thatquantum reflection enhances the trap lifetime. The lifetime measurement in Figure 4-5, in
conjunction with a crude model for reflection suppressed trap loss, gave a “zero-velocity”
reflection probability of between 50 and 70%.
80

Figure 4-5: Lifetime measurements for atoms confined in the surface trap. Solid (open)
circles show the remaining atom fraction for a 2π × (9, 9, 6.5) Hz [2π × (3.3, 2.5, 6.5) Hz]
trap. The fitted 1/e lifetimes are 23 ms and 170 ms respectively.

When the solid surface was replaced with the pillared surface, we did not observe a
dramatic increase in the lifetime as expected.

81

82

Chapter 5

Structured Potentials for Quantum
Reflection
This chapter supplements work reported in the following publication, included in Appendix C:• T. A. Pasquini, M. Saba, G. -B. Jo, Y. Shin, D. E. Pritchard, and W. Ketterle, “Low-velocity
quantum reflection of Bose-Einstein condensates”, PRL 97, 093201 (2006).

Initial results from normal incidence quantum reflection on silicon were limited to ∼ 15%

at the lowest velocities as opposed to a predicted values near 50%. We had two goals with
our second quantum reflection project: (1) improving the reflection coefficient and (2)understanding the limitations at low velocity. This Chapter will address our work on thefirst of these two goals.
As discussed in Section 3.2, the reflection probability depends only on the incident velocity and the properties of the surface, specifically, the C4 coefficient1 . Ab initio calculationsof the C4 coefficient are difficult, requiring precise knowledge of the frequency dependent
terms in the atomic polarizability and the dielectric function of the wall, but has been done
for many alkali species on a range of conducting and dielectric surfaces [175, 192, 91, 112, 38,
111, 55]. The resulting values for C4 vary only by factors of ∼ 2 from the perfect conductor
to a strong insulator like glass [175, 165], so, apart from exceptional cases like liquid He,changing the reflecting material will have only minor effects.
On the other hand, C4 is also approximately proportional to the density of atoms inthe bulk material [118], a fact which can be exploited by microfabrication [166], metal
foams [8] or silica aerogels [154, 48, 77]. For these surfaces, the atom-surface interaction is
reduced; lower density means fewer surface atoms to attract the incident atom. This was
1

For the work presented here, C4 alone is sufficient to characterize the potential as the reflection occurs
deep in the retarded tail of the atom-surface potential.

83the approach favored by Shimizu, whose work with structured surfaces [166, 167] guided
our efforts in improving the reflection coefficient.
In recent years, experiments and theory have addressed the question of how periodic
structuring of surfaces influence quantum reflection. Tailored surfaces achieved throughmicro- and nano-fabrication have blurred the line between the interaction of atoms withbulk materials and the interaction of atomic waves with periodic structures. Specifically,
the interpretation of the results of grazing incidence quantum reflection on grating surface [166, 125, 95, 94] have been analyzed with reference to the properties of the surface
only as a correction term. Normal incidence quantum reflection from structured surfaces
provides the complimentary limiting case to grazing incidence quantum reflection. Furthermore, adapting normal incidence reflection to large angles would be possible. The studies
presented here show that, at normal incidence, a simple “reduced density” approach suffices [118] to describe quantum reflection.
This Chapter contains details of the Science Chamber’s published work on improving
quantum reflection probabilities by structuring surfaces. We report an enhancement of thereflection probability by a factor of 4-5 at a velocity of 1 mm/s. Discrepancies from thepredicted behavior for sodium atoms on silicon are explained as resulting from adatoms on
the surface. The published work is augmented by extended discussions of techniques forcomputing the relevant atom-surface potentials for structured surfaces.

5.1

Candidates for improved reflection

Because low-velocity quantum reflection occurs approximately 1 µm away from the surface,
improving the reflection properties requires reducing the density of the surface in the upper∼ 1 µm. The following are the candidate surfaces for improving normal incidence reflection.

5.1.1

Silica aerogels

Silica aerogels push the low-density limit of bulk solids. Formed by controlled evaporation ofa suspension of silica strands with densities in the range of 0.5% to 50% of bulk silica [154,53]. There is no regular internal structure apart from a distribution of pore sizes which
has been studied extensively [77, 48]. Above some typical length scale, ξ0 , aerogels appear
homogeneous. Below a second length scale, a, the gels properties are determined by thesurfaces of the silica clusters that comprise the aerogel. This makes them useful as atechnique for introducing impurities for studies of 3 He [140, 68].
We obtained samples of aerogel manufactured to a bulk density of ∼ 2% from Norbert

Mulders at the University of Delaware, the same source for the aerogels of Ref. [140]. In
Ref. [140] aerogels were characterized by ξ0 ∼= 50 nm and a ∼= 3 nm. A photograph of the84

Figure 5-1: One of the silica aerogels (outlined in red) used in the quantum reflection
experiment in its aluminum holder. The slight blue color is due to Rayleigh scattering.

sample is shown in Figure 5-1. This density was the lowest achievable if the gel was tohave a “flat” surface when removed from the growing container. Because any underlying
structure in the aerogel is characterized by length scales below ξ0 ≪ 1 µm, this material

should be well approximated by reducing the effective C4 coefficient by a factor of ∼ 50, as
described below in Section 5.2.

5.1.2

Periodically pillared surfaces

Interference lithography is a process by which the interference pattern of two overlappedlaser fields is transferred to a solid structure [173, 155, 153, 185, 152]. The much heralded
Nanoruler, produced by interference lithography, has potential uses in semiconductor patterning and replication in addition to filling the role of a diffraction grating in telescopes [92].
By introducing two perpendicular interference patterns, the techniques for creating grating
structures can be used to create arrays of pillars on surfaces. The surface selected for our
experiment with quantum reflection was such a pillar structure etched into single-crystal
silicon, shown in Figure 5-2.
As opposed to the aerogel, the periodically pillared surface was quite thin (∼ 1 µm)
and supported by a thick substrate of silicon at crystalline density. We anticipated that,
because quantum reflection occurs a micron away from the surface, the bulk substrate would
play only a small role in determining the reflection properties of the surface, and that thesurface would be well approximated by an effective C4 coefficient of 0.01 × C4Si . However,we were concerned that, because the size of structures on the surface was comparable to
the reflection distance that the potential, a bulk material approximation might not beappropriate, as described below in Section 5.2.
85

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Figure 5-2: A multi-step etching process is used to create the periodically pillared surface.
In the first step, a photoresist is annealed by the interference fringes of a 2D optical lattice
above the surface. The pillars are spaced at 500 nm. The surface is then etched, leaving
the array of pillars shown in panel (a). Repeated applications of etchant gradually remove
material from the sides of the pillars and the bulk material below, shown in panels (b)-(d).
In panel (d), the pillars are ∼ 1 µm tall and approximately 50 nm in diameter.

865.1.3

Laser ablated surfaces

A surface that balances the structure-less nature of the aerogel with an etching processthat removes material in the top ∼ 1 µm of a bulk surface is the femptosecond laser

ablated surface made by Eric Mazur at Harvard University [164]. The process involves

the irradiation of a silicon surface submerged in water, creating a molten layer of siliconthat rapidly cools in a “ripple” pattern. As this process is repeated thousands of times,
the various ripples interfere, leaving behind pillars with a height of ∼ 500 nm spaced at∼ 500 nm. Unlike the periodically spaced pillars, however, these ablated surfaces do nothave a periodic structure. After an application of HF, the pillars have a diameter of roughly
200 nm, giving a density reduction of approximately 90%. It appears possible that a second
stage of oxidation and HF etching could result in a reduced pillar diameter.
This surface was not available when we began our work on reduced density quantum
reflection, but would make an interesting comparison to the periodically pillared surface.

5.1.4

Carbon films

A third technique for reducing the atom-surface interaction does not vary the density at all,but instead uses an extremely thin film. Section 1.2.2 arrived at the density dependenceof C4 through a volume integral over the surface to a depth comparable to the quantum
reflection distance. If the surface is thinner than this distance, the interaction can besubstantially reduced. In fact, the actual form of the potential is changed; the potential fora t thick film can be calculated as the difference between the potential of two semi infinite
slabs separated by t. As t becomes very small, the −C4 /r 4 form of the potential becomes≈ −C5 /r 5 [120]. Going from bulk to a film 1 nm thick, the temperature for 90% quantum
reflection is increased by about a factor of 100.

We selected a carbon film with 2.5 nm thickness (Goodfellow part number C 004905).
Thinner films are available, but, according to the manufacturer, would be difficult to mountwith significant unsupported area. As it turns out, we were unable to mount even this film
owing to the fact that, once it was separated from the substrate in water, none of us could
see it to mount it on anything. We did not attempt to work with thicker carbon films as
the enhancement factor becomes less than a factor of 2 for a 10 nm thick surface.

5.1.5

Piezo-modulated silicon

Our final technique for reducing the atom-surface interaction was to temporally modulate
the position of the surface. Because the atoms in the experiment move with such low
velocity (mm/s) and the reflection process takes so long (10 ms), we thought it would bepossible to reduce the effect of the surface by having it moved out of its “reflecting” position87

for the majority of the time. As long as the modulation was much faster than the atoms
propagation, the atoms should respond to the time-averaged potential, as is the case in the
TOP trap [137]. Piezoelectric elements can be modulated at 10 kHz, significantly fasterthan the inverse reflection time of 100 Hz.
We selected a 2 mm pizeo cube which could be changed in length by ∼ 2 µm with theapplication of 100 V. To the front side, we mounted a small silicon wafer with vacuum

compatible epoxy. The assembly is visible in Figure 4-2. Once mounted, we found the
maximum amplitude of motion could only be reached at frequencies near 1 kHz, so, we
chose to modulate with a sine wave rather than a square wave. This resulted in an effective
halving of the atom-surface potential. Since the reflection probability scales with the fourthroot of the C4 coefficient, however, we were unable to detect any change in the reflection
probability with this technique.

5.2

What potential does an atom see?

Our most successful experiment with reduced density surfaces used the array of nano-pillars.
We observed, as is discussed below, an enhancement of the low velocity reflection probability
by a factor of 4 to 5. However, in order to match our observations with theory, we needed
to understand the interaction between the pillared structure and the atoms. The naiveassumption, that the reduction in density can be averaged and the C4 constant reduced
proportionally, breaks down when atoms can “see” the structure during reflection.
We create three models for generating the reflection probability: (1) the “average density” approach makes the assumption that an appropriate reduction of C4 is sufficient todescribe the structuring, (2) the “average potential” approach uses a spatial average of thefull 3D potential of a structured surface, and (3) the “average reflection” approach uses
a spatial average of the reflection probabilities calculated from different points above thefull 3D potential. In the end, we find that all three models provide similar results in theexperimentally accessible regime for the surface used in our experiments, and so the averagedensity approach is sufficient in the nano-kelvin regime.
This section discusses the various numerical techniques employed to calculate the atomsurface interaction for a surface with structures of comparable size to the atomic wavelength.
Furthermore, we discuss the role that surface adatoms play in reducing the reflection probability.

5.2.1

Models of the pillared surface

The pillared surface comprises a wafer of single crystal silicon with a ∼ 1 µm thick overlayerof 50 nm diameter pillars spaced in a square array with side 500 nm, as pictured in Figure 588

2. In each model, silicon substrate is included as a semi-infinite slab of silicon which
provides a potential Vbulk (z) = −C4 /(z + 1µm)4 , although we find that the inclusion of thispotential has negligible effect on the reflection probability in the experimentally relevant
region. The pillars, while somewhat irregularly shaped, are assumed to be cylindricallysymmetric. All calculations are strongly motivated by the “source theory” of Ref. [118]and a presentation made at the 2005 CAMS conference by J. Babb [10]. Source theory
approaches the calculation of the Casimir type forces between dielectrics without explicit
reference to the zero-point-field energy.
The average density approximation
The simple average density approximation is attractive for its intuitiveness: a reasonable
expression for the atom-surface interaction can be built up from atom-atom interactions
and an appropriate density [118] or, on the other hand, can be derived by starting withthe surface-surface interaction and diluting the surface down to a single atom [6]. However,such a simple picture misses certain aspects of a bulk material: the source theory Milonni
and Shih [118] overestimates the interaction between an atom and a metal surface by ∼15% [10]. Furthermore, when dealing with a “real” surface, the dielectric function has
typically been measured for bulk materials only and small structures may exhibit different
frequency dependent behavior [20, 131]. Nevertheless, when the structure of the surface ismesoscopic, it is reasonable to assume that the material behaves as the bulk.
Also supporting the use of an average density to simulate the surface is the large deBroglie wavelength, λdB ≃ 1 µm, which exceeds the spacing of the pillars. This is a majordifference from grazing incidence reflection where the deBroglie wavelength parallel to thesurface is quite small [166, 95, 94].
By scaling the C4 coefficient for silicon down by a factor of 100, we anticipate improved
reflection as shown in Figure 5-4 with a dotted line. The original reflection probability
calculation for silicon is shown as a solid line.
The average potential approximation
A more sophisticated treatment of a structured surface would generate an atom-surface
potential with structure at length scales comparable to the scale of the structure. For our
periodic array of nano-pillars, we expect a Casimir-Polder type potential modulated withsome “egg-crate” function at distances less than ∼ 1 µm from the surface. The potential

will be stronger directly above a pillar, would be substantially modulated at distances
comparable to the pillar spacing and strongly modulated at distances comparable to thepillar size. Because the pillar spacing is 500 nm and we expect reflection to occur near
1 µm, this structure may be relevant.
89

To generate the full 3D potential of the structured surface, we first calculated the potential above a single pillar by integrating the atom-atom interaction over the region containing
matter. This integrated potential, with the limits taken to infinity, was scaled to match the
Casimir-Polder potential. With the potential of a single pillar, the full potential at a point
above the surface was “built up” by summing the contributions from all pillars within rangeof the point. The relevant lines of Mathematica code are included in Appendix D.
The average potential was calculated by spatially averaging the potential. Twentyone points inside 1/8th of a unit cell (the region bounded by 4 neighboring pillars) werechosen and appropriately weighted to give an average potential at atom-surface separations
from 0.1 − 7 µm above the pillared surface, that is, in the relevant region. The potentials

calculated by the average potential and the average density approximation are shown in
Figure 5-3.
The two potentials are indistinguishable (< 5% difference) above 5 µm from the surface,but differ by a factor of 2 at 300 nm from the surface. Additionally, the pillar potential
appears softer, “turning on” ∼ 10% further away from the surface. This is because at a
distance a > r > rpillar , the pillar radius, from the surface with pillars spaced at a, roughlyr 2 /a2 of the incident atoms are strongly interacting with the full density silicon in the pillar.
Other atoms see the effect of the surface “turning off” gradually. This is why at distances
beyond a micron the average potential matches the reduced density potential, but the twopotentials diverge at short range. When r < rpillar, the fraction of atoms still interacting
2strongly with the pillars is roughly rpillar/a2 , and we again expect the average potential to

be close to the reduced density potential. We could not numerically check this limit due tocomputing power constraints.
The average potential was fit with a polynomial expression and the reflection probability
was calculated from this polynomial fit. The reflection probability for the average potential
model is shown in Figure 5-4 with a dashed line. The observed softening of the potential
does not significantly affect the predicted reflection from the average potential, which isalmost identical to that from the average density surface.
The average reflection approximation
The final technique for calculating the reflection probability from the structured surface
uses the numerically calculated line potentials to calculate the reflection probability before
spatially averaging. This model relies on an Eikonal approximation, i.e. we assume thatthe particle travels along a line perpendicular to the surface and ignore any initial parallel
velocity or parallel accelerations induced by the modulation of the atom-surface potential.
Again, twenty-one points were selected and the potential calculated above these points. A
fitting polynomial was generated for each, shown in Figure 5-3.
90

10Reflection Prob.

Potential (Hartree)

10

-10

1

0.1

0.01

-11

0

10
10
10
10

5

10

15

20

25

Velocity (mm/s)

-12

-13

-14

-15

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

Position (micron)Figure 5-3: Line potentials (multiple red and blue lines), calculated as described in the text,
above various points on the pillared surface show strong dependence on the structure of thesurface. The reflection probability for each line potential is shown in the inset. The spatial
average of these potentials (thick, black line) is used to calculate reflection probability inthe ”average potential” model. The “average density” model (thick, dotted black line) is
indistinguishable from the other models at distances greater than a few microns. Finally,
the purely retarded potential of a solid surface is shown (thick dash-dotted black line).
Inset: The reflection probability is calculated from each of the line potentials (dotted lines).
The solid line is the prediction of the average density model.

The general trend is that stronger potentials are measured above points close to a pillar.
While we were unable to accurately calculate the potential closer than ∼ 100 nm from thesurface, the potential just above the pillar (the uppermost thin line) appears to converge

to the purely retarded potential of a solid silicon surface, shown as a thick dot-dashed line,
as expected.
The reflection calculated from each of these line potentials varied substantially in magnitude and velocity dependence, shown by the dotted lines in the inset of Figure 5-3. The
trend is for higher reflection probability to be observed for line potentials close to the pillar,
but at no point is the reflection as strong as for the reduced density approximation, shownas the black solid line. At worst, in between the pillars, the reflection probability is worse
than for the solid silicon surface above 10 mm/s. The softening of the potential discussed
in the previous Section has become crucial in this model; when the potential levels off awayfrom the surface, the breakdown of the WKB approximation is no longer severe and atoms
are smoothly accelerated into the surface.
The reflection probabilities for the line potentials were spatially averaged. The reflection91

1

Reflection Probability

8
6
4

2

0.1
8
6
4

2

0.01
5

10

15

20

25

Incident Velocity (mm/s)

Figure 5-4: The predicted reflection probabilities are shown for four model potentials as
described in the text. The solid, dotted, dashed and dot-dashed lines correspond to the (1)the solid silicon surface, (2) the average density model, (3) average potential model, and(4) average reflection model of the pillared surface.

probability for the average reflection model is shown in Figure 5-4 with a dot-dashed line.
Unlike the average potential model, the average reflection model predicts a strong effect due
to the structure of the surface. This model, however, does not account for the transverse
coherence or transverse structure in the wavefunction, and is unlikely to give a good result
for ultracold atoms with large λdB .
Comparison of models
The numerical techniques for calculating the reflection probability were compared for thelimiting case of pillars spaces in a square array with spacing roughly equal to the diameter.
This corresponds to the case of a solid surface. All three models predict the same behavior
for the solid silicon surface as expected.
For the pillared surface, the three approximations predict enhancement of the reflection
probability, shown in Figure 5-4. The average density and average potential model predictvery similar results Only at higher velocity, around 70 mm/s do they differ by as much asa factor of 2; only when the badlands region pushes further in toward the surface, do thesmall differences in the two potentials become relevant. As such, we do not expect that ourexperiment will be able to distinguish between the these two approximations. By increasing
the pillar separation, possibly by as little as a factor of 2, a repeated experiment would be
able to distinguish between these models.
The average reflection model, however, predicts that the modulated potential will limit
the enhancement of the reflection probability for surfaces with structures whose spacing iscomparable to the point of reflection as predicted by the badlands region. A comparison
92

between two similar average density surfaces with different spacings, such as a pillared
structure and an aerogel, would test the applicability of this model to the reflection of
Bose-Einstein condensates.

5.2.2

Spurious interactions

Much ado has been made in recent years about the effect of conducting and insulating
surfaces near Bose-Einstein condensates. Concern surrounds two major areas: the effect ofstray oscillating fields (primarily rf fields) associated with Johnson noise [71, 100, 83, 69,
104, 145] and stray static fields associated with adsorbed atoms (adatoms) on surfaces [69,113, 128]. Both effects are deleterious to precision measurements with BEC.
In conducting materials, Johnson noise is present due to the thermal motion of electrons
which generates short range stray magnetic fields. Stray oscillating fields limit the lifetimeof atoms in magnetic traps by coupling trappable states to un-trappable states, similar to
the way forced evaporative cooling proceeds as discussed in Section 2.1.3. In contrast to
rf cooling fields, stray rf fields are not spectrally narrow and affect all atoms in the trap,
leading to an exponential decay of the trapped population. At distances beyond 100 µm,
the losses due to the surface are minor compared to background scattering associated with
our standard UHV conditions. Near a conducting surface, however, these effects can dominate, dropping the lifetime by several orders of magnitude [100, 83, 69, 104]. Theoreticaltreatments of the problem reveal that the skin depth of the material in question sets a
length scale on which particularly large interactions can occur [71, 145].
For our quantum reflection experiments, the effect of Johnson noise is negligble; working
with dielectric surfaces (which are poor conductors) as opposed to metal surfaces strongly
suppress the effect of Johnson noise. In two experiments, background gas limited lifetimes
were observed at distances down to 2.5 µm [69, 104]. Lin, et.al. measured an abrupt
reduction in the trap lifetime from 3.5 s to ∼ 150 ms when a cold thermal cloud of atoms

was brought to 1 µm away from a silicon surface, however, the effect was attributed tosimple surface evaporation rather than fluctuating fields [104]. The theoretical treatmentof a glass surface by Henkel, et.al finds that the spin flip loss rate due to Johnson noise ison the order of 10−18 s−1 at a distance of 1 µm from the surface, far below the observed
background gas loss rate in our trap [71]. We therefore feel confident that Johnson noiseplays an insignificant role in our system.
Adatoms exist on all surfaces. The classical interaction between atoms and surfaces leads
to incident atoms landing in bound states of the van der Waals potential as discussed in
Section 3.2. These adatoms comprise a fractional monolayer on the surface and could safely
be ignored were it not for the fact that the electronic structure of atoms is altered in thepresence of the surface [156]. The atom can be partially ionized, leading to an electronic93

dipole on the surface. The degree of ionization can be approximated by comparing theionization energy of the surface (work function) to the ionization energy of the atom. Since
ionization energies are smallest for alkali atoms, the dominant contribution to the adatom
field will be alkali adsorbates on the surface [113].
The static fields associated with these adatoms are more relevant for our quantum
reflection work. Rather than affecting the lifetime of trapped atoms, these fields combinewith the atom-surface potential to determine the reflection properties of the surface. For a
uniform distribution of adatoms, the electric field would be zero above a large surface. In
the case where the distribution of adatoms is localized, as might be the case if the adatoms
were deposited primarily by slamming BECs against the surface, the electric field falls off
with a power law dependence determined by the exact distribution of adatoms. The field of
a localized point distribution would fall off as 1/r 3 , whereas a line of dipoles would fall off
as 1/r 2 . A careful study of the adatom potential in reference [128] found that the electricfield fell off with a power of −2 to −2.3.
The potential of this adatom field and the Casimir-Polder potential, therefore, have thesame dependence on the atom surface separation; the electric field associated with adatoms
was found to fall off as 1/r 2 giving a potential Vadatom = −(α/2)Eadatom (r)2 ∝ Cadatom /r 4 [113].
This adatom potential would be indistinguishable from the atom-surface potential at large

distances, and must be measured using alternative techniques [128]. Empirically, we findan upper bound on Cadatom ≃ C4 for our experiments with silicon surfaces [132].
Finally, we note that static patch charges will exhibit stronger interactions than an
identical distribution of electric dipoles due to adatoms. A surface charge will create a
uniform electric field, an a linear (point) distribution of patch charges creates an electricfield that falls off as 1/r (1/r 2 ). The potential for the line distribution Vpatch ∝ Cpatch /r 2 ,which, as discussed in Section 3.2 will not quantum reflect atoms at all. Strongly insulating
surfaces which can support large patch charges without dissipation, like silica aerogels, will
not display quantum reflection, and this is most likely the reason why we never observe
quantum reflection from aerogels2 .

5.3

Experimental results

The published experimental results of our work are included in Appendix C.
2When we first became aware of this problem, we tried to establish the magnitude of the static charge
on our aerogel surfaces. When removed from their mounts, the static charge was sufficient to firmly attach
the aerogels worked with in this experiment to a gloved finger. Therefore, in addition to having stronger
dependence on r, it seems that the magnitude of the static charge was also quite large.

94

1
8
6

Reflection Probability

4

2

0.1
8
6
4

2

0.01
8
6

5

10

15

20

25

Incident VeloctiyFigure 5-5: The reflection probability vs. incident velocity for atoms reflecting off solid andpillared silicon surfaces. All theory curves are described in the text.

5.3.1

Reflection probability

Figure 5-5 is the major result of Ref. [132], reproduced here to show how the models
discussed above apply to our experiment. In addition to the data of Ref. [133] and Figure 44, data collected by the same technique but for the pillared surface pictured in Figure 5-2
are shown. To extend the experimental velocity from 0.5 mm/s to 25 mm/s, we used aloose trap with frequencies 2π × (2.0, 2.5, 8.2) Hz and a tight trap with trap frequencies

2π × (4.2, 5.0, 8.2) Hz. The data clearly show the enhanced reflection probability from thepillared silicon surface.

We present several theory curves generated by the models discussed in Section 5.2. First,
the dot-dashed curves are the predictions for solid silicon and for the reduced density model.
Both predict significantly higher reflection probability that we observe. The dashed anddotted curves show the predictions of the average potential and average reflection models
respectively. The average reflection model predicts lower reflection than we observe athigh velocity. Because there are no simple mechanisms for the model to underestimate thereflection probability of the surface, this suggests that the premise of the model, that atoms
sample the potential in a very small range about their trajectory, is incorrect.
The solid curves use the same model as the dot-dashed curves, but have C4 adjusted
to fit the data at high velocity. This corresponds to roughly doubling the expected valueof C4 . This is justified by the presence of sodium adatoms on the surface as discussed in
Section 5.2.2 and corresponds to a stray field of 10 V/cm (70 V/cm) for the pillared (solid)95surface.
Still apparent in the enhanced reflection data is the deviation at the lowest velocities
from the expected threshold behavior. This discrepancy is the topic of Chapter 6.

96Chapter 6

Interaction Effects in Quantum
Reflection
This chapter supplements work reported in the following publication, included in Appendix C:• T. A. Pasquini, M. Saba, G. -B. Jo, Y. Shin, D. E. Pritchard, and W. Ketterle, “Low-velocity
quantum reflection of Bose-Einstein condensates”, PRL 97, 093201 (2006).

In our first experiment on quantum reflection, the three lowest velocity data points wecollected showed a strong deviation from the anticipated behavior, as shown in Figure 5-5.
Rather than rising to ∼ 50% reflection probability as predicted, the data showed saturationnear 10%. We initially attributed the effect to “collective excitations”, “acceleration due tothe harmonic trapping potential during the collision”, and “mean-field interactions [via] thelocal speed of sound” [133]. In the end, all three of these play an important role in the detailsof reflection, but in a way that was difficult to understand at first. As we collected moredata on reduced density surfaces, we also developed a more complete picture of quantum
reflection of condensates as opposed to the well-developed theory quantum reflection of
atoms.
This Chapter discusses BEC III’s work in identifying and clarifying the role of meanfield interactions on quantum reflection of atoms from surfaces. Mean-field interactions areaccounted for as an additional potential seen by atoms during quantum reflection. Explicitly
including this potential predicts the saturation velocity and reflection probability accurately.

6.1

The failure of simple models

Excitations alone cannot describe the decreased reflection probability. Numeric simulationsof reflecting condensates show that excitations do occur during the reflection process and97

Reflection Probability

1.0
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0

1

2
3
Velocity (mm/s)

45Figure 6-1: Predicted reflection probability when a “speed of sound” velocity is added inquadrature to the center of mass velocity. The solid, dashed and dotted curves are shown
for a reduced density surface for the 0, 1.0 mm/s, and 1.7 mm/s speed of sound. These
values correspond to a non-interacting BEC and an upper and lower limit on the speed ofsound in our condensate.

that these excitations become most prominent when the incident velocity is low [162]. In
the ideal case, a reflected BEC would have the same spatial profile as the incident BEC, butwould have a reduced density. Excitations, on the other hand, re-distribute the incident
BEC wavefunction so that there are large regions of reduced density far from the centerof mass of the condensate. It was suggested that these regions of low density may goundetected and could account for the observed saturation at low velocity. Accounting forthe severity of the saturation, however, required that the detection threshold be set far
below our experimental threshold.
Neither can sum of the center of mass energy and the energy of the local speed of soundaccount for the observed saturation. In this model, the mean-field potential energy of thecondensate, which must fall to zero at the surface (along with the condensate density) could
accelerate the atoms into the Casimir-Polder potential, adding the speed of sound to any
center of mass velocity. These velocities would, then, add in quadrature giving a non-zero
incident velocity even in the absence of a center of mass velocity. This model predicts a lessdramatic onset of any saturation effect than we observe. Figure 6-1 shows how this model
varies for increasing values of the speed of sound.

6.2

An improved model for mean-field effects

Our improved model for including the effect of mean-field interactions is simple: quantum
reflection is well described by a local process comprising single atoms interacting with a98

Potential (nK)

0

(a)

-2

-4

0

2

4

6

mm)

8

10

Reflection Prob.

Position (
1

(b)

0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0

1

2

3

4

5

Velocity (mm/s)

Figure 6-2: The mean field model for quantum reflection of condensates. (a) The condensate
and harmonic trap provide a repulsive mean-field energy which is constant far from thesurface and, within the healing length, falls to zero (dashed curve). This potential combineswith the Casimir-Polder potential (dotted) to create the composite potential (solid curve)
used to model quantum reflection of condensates. (b) The reflection probabilities from thesame potentials at low velocity.

potential. To account for the effect of the trap and the presence of other atoms, the GrossPitaevskii equation is solved for the reflecting condensate, and the combined potential of
the trap, the atoms, and the surface are summed to give the reflection potential for theatoms. Constructing such a model is made difficult, however, by the interaction between
the reflection probability and the density in the trap at any point in time.
To create a tractable model which maintaining the relevant physics, we assume that theeffect of the condensate can be accounted for by including a potential which is constantaway from the surface and falls to zero at the surface over the healing length, ξ, as thougha hard wall were present at the surface position, as shown in Figure 6-2. The expression√
used is n(x) = n0 [tanh x/ 2ξ]2 , where n(x) and (n0 ) the density and peak density of thecondensate [136]. The combined potential differs only by an offset from the Casimir-Polder
potential for distances z ≪ ξ and z ≫ ξ, but is dominated by the mean field potential forz ≃ ξ. In this region, the potential is “softened” the edge of the condensate.

The effect on quantum reflection probabilities of including such a potential is dramatic.

Regardless of the density used to determine the healing length, we find that near threshold(zero velocity), the reflection probability saturates and falls sharply before exhibiting thecharacteristic rise to unity reflection at zero velocity. We can understand this effect by99

considering how the point of quantum reflection changes with incident velocity. At highvelocity, the badlands is strongly peaked close to the surface, where the effect of the meanfield energy is small. Here, we recover the long healing length limit, and the reflection
behaves as though the mean-field energy is just added to the incoming kinetic energy. As
the velocity is reduced, the point of reflection moves further away from the surface and enters
the region where the potential has been strongly influenced by the edge of the condensate.
The gentle acceleration due to the edge of the condensate diminishes the effect of the abrupt
acceleration due to the Casimir-Polder, causing the saturation and decline of the reflection
probability. The rise to unity reflection at very low velocity is an artifact of the exact shapeof the condensate; it corresponds to the badlands function being highly peaked inside thecondensate.
If the density of the condensate could be further reduced, there would be two effects: (1)the healing length of the condensate becomes large and (2) the mean-field energy becomes
small. The first change would reduce the distortion of the atom-surface potential in theregion of reflection in our model. Instead of influencing the atoms during reflection, thecondensate would pre-accelerate the atoms toward the surface as discussed in Section 6.1.
The second effect would reduce the pre-acceleration to a negligible value, and explains why
a similar effect is not observed with thermal beams at grazing incidence, where densities
are much lower.
This simple model also recovers threshold behavior in the high density limit when thehealing length is shorter than the reflection distance. This, however, is a failure of themodel to account for the presence of the atom-surface potential; clearly the condensate
density cannot remain unaffected in the presence of a strong absorber. It is expected thathigher densities should lead to (1) further suppression of the maximum reflection coefficientand (2) a commensurate increase in the velocity where saturation occurs. This is the likely
reason why we were unable to observe quantum reflection of atoms confined in the optical
dipole trap, as described in Section 4.2.

6.3

Experimental results

The published experimental results of our work are included in Appendix C.

6.3.1

Reflection probability

Figure 6-3 is the major result of Ref. [132], reproduced here to show how the mean-fieldinteraction model defines quantum reflection of BEC. Using the measured density to calculate the mean-field potential and healing length, and adjusting the value of C4 to accountfor adsorbed atoms (see Section 5.2.2) and to match the well-behaved data at high velocity,
100

1
8
6

Reflection Probability

4

2

0.1
8
6
4

2

0.01
8
6

5

10

15

20

25

30

Incident VeloctiyFigure 6-3: The reflection probability vs. incident velocity for atoms reflecting off solidand pillared silicon surfaces. The solid lines are a single parameter (the stray electric field
gradient) fit to the data.

our simple model predicts the saturation of the reflection probability at very low velocities,
as shown in Figure 6-3.
It is unfortunate that the experiment is limited to the predicted saturation region anddoes not adequately probe the predicted fall to 10% reflection probability that occurs near
0.1 mm/s.

6.3.2

Excitations during reflection

A condensate in the ground state of a harmonic trap has a well-defined, symmetric profile
when imaged. Apart from the fundamental dipole oscillation, excitations to the condensate
tend to induce density fluctuations. In collecting images of reflected condensates, as shownin Figure 6-4, it is clear that strong excitations are present in the reflected cloud. Quantum
reflection of atoms is an abrupt process, resulting from the breakdown of the semiclassicaltreatment of the atom wavefunction. At the point of reflection, the reflected componentof the atomic wavefunction interferes with the incident component to create strong density
oscillations. This alone, however, does not lead to the excitations. Excitations requireinteractions between atoms to give a density dependent term in the Schrödinger equation,
as discussed in Section 1.1.
There are two types of excitations present in our system: single particle excitations
evidenced by the appearance of a scattering halo and collective excitations evidenced by a
101

(a)

(b)

6.0 mm/s(d)(c)

1.5 mm/s(e)

6.0 mm/s

0.8 mm/s(f)

3.0 mm/s

3.0 mm/s

Figure 6-4: As the incident velocity is decreased, the reflected condensate becomes increasingly excited, as seen in panel (a)-(c). Panels (e) and (f) show the presenceof the s-wave scattering halo. A movie showing reflection at 3 mm/s is available at
http:/cua.mit.edu/ketterle group/Animation folder/QRMovie.wmv.

distortion of the reflected cloud. The single particle excitations are the result of individual
atoms within the incident and reflecting condensate colliding and re-distributing their momentum [59, 26]. Conservation of energy and momentum in the two body collision requirethat atoms retain their initial energy and magnitude of momentum in the center of massframe, but the direction of motion relative to the center of mass may take any direction. In
time-of-flight or after an appropriate hold time, the scattered atoms lie on a spherical shellthat appears like a halo when imaged, as in Figure 6-4e,f. This halo will be visible whenever
the two clouds collide at sufficiently high density, that is, when the reflection probability
is high. These excitations are not predicted by the Gross-Pitaevskii equation which describes only macroscopically occupied states. The re-introduction of these interactions canbe handled by simulating quantum fluctuations as classical fluctuations on the initial stateof the system via the truncated Wigner method [123, 124]. Collisions between atoms arethen accounted for as four-wave mixing between the highly occupied modes of the colliding
condensates and the quantum fluctuations. The scattering halos that we observe duringreflection are well described in this way, as demonstrated in the simulations of Ref. [159].
The collective excitations we observe are more interesting, and have inspired extended
numeric simulations. The “interferential disruption” is described in Ref. [162, 159]. Wheninterference between incoming and reflected atoms is established, the density of the cloud isforced far from equilibrium. Halfway through the reflection, during the time of maximum102

overlap, the average density is increased by a factor of 1 + R, where R is the reflection
probability. Additionally, interference fringes create regions of constructive and destructive
interference, spaced at 1/k, where k is the incident wavevector, further increasing the density in the regions of constructive interference, creating a series of “pancakes” parallel tothe surface. This increased density leads to out of equilibrium mean-field interactions in
the directions parallel to the surface. The condensate relaxes by expanding each pancake
radially, in a sort of quadrupole oscillation. The interplay between (1) the constructive
interference and (2) the resulting quadrupole oscillation leads to the formation of solitonsand vortex rings. When the interference is long lived at low velocity, the quadrupole oscillation significantly re-distributes the condensate radially. At high velocity, the collective
excitations are doubly suppressed: reduced reflected condensates mean weaker interference
and high velocity means shorter time for the quadrupole oscillation to act. The collective excitations due to the density modulation during quantum reflection are similar to theexcitations caused by accelerating an optical lattice through a condensate [161, 160, 34].

103

104

Chapter 7

Conclusion
7.1

Applications of quantum reflection

In recent years, encouraging work with high probability quantum reflection has led to speculation on useful applications of the effect. This section will review several proposals andexplain how our work, including some unpublished results, might apply. The proposals are
divided between three categories: trapping atoms, focusing and manipulating atom waves,and fundamental science.

7.1.1

Focusing atomic beams

As a technology driven sub-field, atom optics pursues the tools of optics (lenses, mirrors,
beam splitters, etc.) for use with matter waves. While evanescent waves [87, 1] and permanently magnetized materials [74, 147] surpass solid surfaces as atom mirrors and ideal
beam splitters are currently realized in both confined [82, 169] and free propagating [186]geometries, there is no equivalent of an ideal lens for atoms or atomic beams. The closest realization is a focusing Fresnel zone plate which works by diffraction [21, 40]. In thisexperiment, an atomic beam was partially focused from a 400 µm waist to a 25 µm waist
and increased in intensity by a factor of 4. Unfortunately, the majority of the beam was
unaffected by the zone plate, so the focused beam rested atop a plateau of unfocused atoms.
A second approach takes advantage of the weak interaction between He and monolithic Si,
which can be flexed by large electric fields, to quantum reflect helium into a partially focused
beam [75]. Strong geometrical abberations limit the usefulness of such a system.
Quantum reflection finds a suggested use in two schemes for focusing atoms. In the first,
dubbed the “atomic nanoscope”, a transmissive, focusing mirror element is constructedfrom a conical hole in a silicon wafer [96]. A collimated atomic beam incident on the holeis partially reflected (ridges along the sides of the conical hole improve the reflectivity) andfocused. While the beam intensity is greatly reduced, the brightness may still be increased105

by the substantial focusing. A second scheme uses reflective Fresnel zone plates as a focusing
element [84]. Simulations have demonstrated an increase in density of an order of magnitude
when an appropriately designed zone plate is used in place of the plain or pillared surface
in the normal incidence quantum reflection experiments described above. Both of these
proposals are fairly simple extensions of previous work; more attention will probably be
paid to the Kouznetsov proposal because it is designed to work with collimated atomic
beams rather than with a condensate or atom laser [96].

7.1.2Trapping of ultracold atoms

One attractive and widely touted use for quantum reflection is as universal confinement for
ultracold atoms [86]. Some studies of quantum reflection have actually relied on lifetime
measurements in such traps to determine the reflection probability [41, 193, 133]. Such a
trap would be useful for precision measurements because, the absence of confining lasers andmagnetic fields eliminates the fluctuations in these fields. Additionally, because the effective
confining potential is very short range, affecting only atoms within a few microns of the walls,
the atoms would behave as in a freely propagating state. Because the reflection probability
approaches unity as the velocity of atoms approaches zero, a quantum reflection trap would
be well suited to confining only the coldest of atomic samples. This too could be useful,for the predicted lifetime of an atom in the trap is proportional to its velocity; the sample
would be effectively cooled by surface evaporation throughout the experiment [107, 69].
The publication of our result on normal incidence quantum reflection has sparked a seriesof papers by H. Friedrich [85, 108] discussing the physics of such traps. A similar proposal
has even been suggested for the confinement of ultracold anti-hydrogen [184]. The primaryfinding of this work is an effective 100 fold improvement in the surviving atom fraction (toapproximately 50%) for times ∼ 400 ms when quantum reflection from surfaces provides
confinement. This is comparable to what was observed in our “half-harmonic” quantum
reflection trap reported in Ref. [133]. Confinement of atoms by quantum reflection against
a gravitational field, however, may prove impossible given the strength of gravity [93]; it
may be necessary to work in microgravity environments [183].
One final proposal suggests the use of quantum reflection traps to create new geometries
for confining condensates [109]. Here, the 1D box potential of Refs. [85, 108] is extended to
2D in a square and circular trap. Both traps behave similarly to the 1D box potential.
Our work with quantum reflection traps (see Section 4.4.2) continued when we began
using highly reflective structured surfaces. However, we did not observe a corresponding
dramatic increase in the lifetime of atoms held against a structured surface. Rather, lifetimes
similar to the plain surface trap were preliminarily observed. It is possible that our results
are limited by the experimental technique: i.e. excitations may result due to the method106

for bringing the atoms in contact with the surface.

7.1.3

Fundamental condensate physics

Condensates in dilute gases, for all of the attention directed toward them in the decadefollowing their first observation, are still being studied for their basic properties. Quantum
reflection of condensates has been used as a platform to study excitations [161, 162, 159] andvortices [105]. These works are, at this point, mostly about testing the limits of numericalsimulations to explain the “messy” details of quantum reflection with condensates. In thisregard, more detailed experimental studies of quantum reflection will encourage further
developments in the field of simulations. Furthermore, as quantum reflection develops into
useable technology, such simulations may reveal unrealized applications. Finally, as wasdemonstrated by our work [132], the role of mean-field interactions in quantum reflection
are not well understood, and an encompassing theory is still wanting.

7.2

The future of the Science Chamber

Immediately following the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation in 1995 and again
when the Nobel Prize was awarded in 2001, the field of cold atoms drew enormous attention for its promise of controlled interactions and novel physics. In the intervening years,
experiments at MIT and around the globe have helped to keep that promise. Quantum
reflection is a beautiful effect with the promise of impacting the manipulation and storageof ultracold atoms. As such, interest in quantum reflection has grown in part as a resultof the first experimental observations with alkali atoms. As has been shown in this thesis,
BEC offers a new way of studying the effect and provides new insight into the line between
mean-field physics and single-atom effects. This work has also uncovered some of the limitations of quantum reflection for confining and manipulating ultracold atoms; quantum
reflection may be useful for particular applications where the lowest of temperatures andthe elimination of all fluctuating fields are necessary, but its usefulness for universal storageis severely limited.
The Science Chamber was designed as a scouting experiment: as new opportunities
presented themselves, it served as a quick way to explore possibilities. In the years I’ve
spent at MIT, the machine has undergone many changes and I’ve had the opportunity to
be involved with many subfields of cold atom physics. Over the last year, we’ve begun
a major effort to rebuild the apparatus to join in a new paradigm of cold atom physics,
the simulation of condensed matter systems. It is a very exciting time for BEC III as thefinishing touches are put on the experiment and work can begin with the optical lattices andFeshbach resonances that have become, in the last 5 years, the new workhorses of atomic
107

physics.
When I arrived at MIT, there was a well-built experiment that allowed BEC III tocontribute to the field unhindered for many years. I hope that as I move forward, the new
foundation being laid provides for another era of contributions from the Science Chamber.

108

Appendix A

Cooling Bose-Einstein condensates
below 500 picokelvin
A. E. Leanhardt, T. A. Pasquini, M. Saba, A. Schirotzek, Y. Shin, D.
Kielpinski, D. E. Pritchard, and W. Ketterle“Cooling Bose-Einstein condensates below 500 picokelvin,”
Science 301, 1513 (2003).

109

REPORTS
17. C. Salomon, talk presented at the Quantum Electronics and Laser Science Conference, Baltimore, MD, 5
June 2003.
18. T. Weber, J. Herbig, M. Mark, H.-C. Nägerl, R. Grimm,
Science 299, 232 (2003); published online 5 Dec
2002 (10.1126/science.1079699).
19. The optical trap has a depth of kB ⫻ 45 nK with aradial trap frequency of 18 Hz and an axial trap
frequency of 6 Hz. The axial direction of the BEC isoriented in the horizontal plane. At 20 G, the Cs
scattering length is a ⫽ 163 a0, with a0 denoting
Bohr’s radius. The resulting chemical potential for the
BEC is kB ⫻ 7 nK.
20. Materials and methods are available as supporting
material on Science Online.
21. V. Vuletić, C. Chin, A. J. Kerman, S. Chu, Phys. Rev.
Lett. 83, 943 (1999).
22. P. S. Julienne, E. Tiesinga, private communication(2003).

23. C. Chin, V. Vuletić, A. J. Kerman, S. Chu, Phys. Rev.
Lett. 85, 2717 (2000).
24. P. J. Leo, C. J. Williams, P. S. Julienne, Phys. Rev. Lett.
85, 2721 (2000).
25. The molecular state was identiﬁed as a high-lying
rovibrational state with internal angular momentumf ⫽ 4, magnetic quantum number mf ⫽ 4, molecularorbital angular momentum L ⫽ 4, and angular momentum projection mL ⫽ 2.
26. T. Weber, J. Herbig, M. Mark, H.-C. Nägerl, R. Grimm,
Phys. Rev. Lett., in press (available at http://arXiv.org/
abs/physics/0304052).
27. V. A. Yurovsky, A. Ben-Reuven, P. S. Julienne, C. J.
Williams, Phys. Rev. A 62, 043605 (2000).
28. This is a reasonable assumption, because no molecules can be created in the absence of atoms.
29. M. R. Andrews et al., Science 275, 637 (1997).
30. D. Jaksch, V. Venturi, J. I. Cirac, C. J. Williams, P.
Zoller, Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 040402 (2002).

Cooling Bose-Einstein
Condensates Below 500 Picokelvin
A. E. Leanhardt,* T. A. Pasquini, M. Saba, A. Schirotzek, Y. Shin,
D. Kielpinski, D. E. Pritchard, W. Ketterle
Spin-polarized gaseous Bose-Einstein condensates were conﬁned by a combination of gravitational and magnetic forces. The partially condensed atomic
vapors were adiabatically decompressed by weakening the gravito-magnetic
trap to a mean frequency of 1 hertz, then evaporatively reduced in size to 2500
atoms. This lowered the peak condensate density to 5 ⫻ 1010 atoms per cubic
centimeter and cooled the entire cloud in all three dimensions to a kinetic
temperature of 450 ⫾ 80 picokelvin. Such spin-polarized, dilute, and ultracoldgases are important for spectroscopy, metrology, and atom optics.
The pursuit of lower temperatures is motivated by the quest to observe phenomena that
occur on very low energy scales, in particular, phase transitions to new forms of matter.
The achievement of temperatures near 1 K in
solids and in liquids led to the discoveries ofsuperconductivity (1) and superfluidity (2),respectively. The advent of laser cooling resulted in microkelvin temperature atomic vapors (3–5), subsequently cooled to nanokelvin temperatures by evaporative cooling toform dilute Bose-Einstein condensates (6, 7)
and quantum degenerate Fermi gases (8).
Collectively, these low-temperature systems
have a host of applications, including superconducting quantum interference devices(SQUIDs) (9), superfluid gyroscopes (10,11), and atomic clocks (12).
Temperature is a quantity that parameterizes how energy is distributed across theavailable states of a system, and effective
temperatures can be defined for decoupleddegrees of freedom or subsets of particles.
For example, nuclear spins isolated from the
Department of Physics, MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms, and Research Laboratory of Electronics,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge,
MA 02139, USA.
*To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: ael@mit.edu

kinetic motion of their respective atoms havebeen cooled by adiabatic demagnetization toan effective temperature of 280 pK (13). Spinensembles have a finite number of available
states, such that a spin-polarized sample, as in
our work, would be characterized by zero
effective temperature. In contrast, the motionof free particles is subject to a continuum ofstates, and the kinetic temperature of an ensemble can only asymptotically approach absolute zero.
Effective temperatures in atomic vapors
are defined by the widths of velocity distributions, which can be much smaller than themean velocity of the sample. Raman cooling(14, 15) and velocity-selective coherent population trapping (VSCPT) (16) have generated velocity distributions with very narrow
peaks, corresponding to nanokelvin and picokelvin effective temperatures. However,these temperatures were associated with the
motion of only a subset of the atoms in thecloud and/or with atomic motion in only one
dimension.
For trapped, partially condensed atomic
vapors, the condensate fraction has zero entropy and the kinetic temperature of the sample is determined by the velocity distributionof the thermal (noncondensed) component.
When released, the condensate fraction expands more slowly than the thermal compo-

31. M. Greiner, O. Mandel, T. Esslinger, T. W. Hänsch, I.
Bloch, Nature 415, 39 (2002).
32. We thank P. S. Julienne for very helpful discussions.
Supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) within
Spezialforschungsbereich 15 ( project part 16) and by
the European Union through the Cold Molecules
Training and Mobility of Researchers Network undercontract no. HPRN-CT-2002-00290.
Supporting Online Materialwww.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/1088876/DC1
Materials and Methods
Figs. S1 to S3
7 July 2003; accepted 11 August 2003
Published online 21 August 2003;
10.1126/science.1088876
Include this information when citing this paper.

nent and has been characterized by picokelvin effective temperatures for anisotropic (17) and noninteracting (18) gases.
Cooling the atomic motion of entire ensembles in all three dimensions has proven difficult.
To date, kinetic temperatures of a few hundred
nanokelvin have been achieved with adiabaticand optical cooling (19, 20), and evaporative
cooling techniques have produced condensateswith temperatures of 3 nK (21). By adiabatic
expansion and subsequent evaporation, we
have cooled partially condensed atomic vapors to picokelvin kinetic temperatures.
Our thermometry is calibrated by the
Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) phasetransition temperature, Tc, which in the thermodynamic limit for a harmonically trapped
ideal Bose gas is (22)k B T e ⫽ ប␻

冉 冊

N 1/3
⬇ 0.94ប␻¯ N 1/3
␨ (3)

(1)

where kB is Boltzmann’s constant, ប is Planck’s
constant h divided by 2␲, ␨(n) is the Riemann ⫽ (␻ ␻ ␻ )1/3 is the geometric
Zeta function, ␻x y z
mean of the harmonic trap frequencies, and N is
the total number of atoms, both condensed andnoncondensed. Thus, the atom number and thetrap frequencies set an upper limit for the temperature of a confined Bose-Einstein condensate. In our work, adiabatically weakening thetrapping potential to a mean frequency of ⫽ 2␲ ⫻ (1.12 ⫾ 0.08) Hz guaranteed␻that partially condensed atomic vapors withN ⱕ 8000 atoms had picokelvin temperatures (Tc ⱕ 1 nK).
Bose-Einstein condensates containing morethan 107 23Na atoms were created in the weak
field seeking ⱍF ⫽ 1, mF ⫽ ⫺1典 state in amagnetic trap, captured in the focus of an optical tweezers laser beam, and transferred into
an auxiliary “science” chamber as described in(23). In the science chamber, condensates containing 2 ⫻ 106 to 3 ⫻ 106 atoms were transferred from the optical tweezers into a gravitomagnetic trap (Fig. 1A). A small coil carrying
current IS generated a vertical bias field Bz andsupported the condensates against gravity witha vertical magnetic field gradient, Bz⬘ ⫽ 2 mg/

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1513

REPORTS␮B ⬇ 8 G/cm, where m is the atomic mass, g is
the gravitational acceleration, and ␮B is theBohr magneton. Additional control over Bz andBz⬘ was provided by two external coils carrying
independent currents IU and IL. Weak curvature, Bz⬘, to the vertical bias field created stablevertical confinement such that a harmonic restoring force was provided magnetically (gravitationally) for downward (upward) vertical displacements (Fig. 1B). A radial field gradient, Br⬘⫽ ⳵Br / ⳵r ⫽ ⫺Bz⬘/2, was also present and addedin quadrature with Bz to provide harmonic radial confinement with a restoring force proportional to (Br⬘)2/Bz (Fig. 1C). The trapping potential does not have fundamental radial asymmetries as do previously demonstrated Ioffe-Pritchard magnetic traps (17, 24, 25). In principle,
stable three-dimensional confinement is possible above a single coil in the presence of gravity
without the aid of external bias fields
or gradients.
For typical loading parameters—IS ⫽ 340
mA, IU ⫽ 5.5 A, and IL ⫽ 0 —the gravitomagnetic trap was spherically symmetric,
with trap frequencies ␻x ⬇ ␻y ⬇ ␻z ⬇ 2␲ ⫻8 Hz. Condensates loaded into the gravitomagnetic trap from the optical tweezers were
held for 5 s to allow for the damping of
excitations. The resulting partially condensed
clouds had ⬃5 ⫻ 105 atoms and a BEC
transition temperature Tc ⫽ 30 nK. Throughout our work, the atomic vapor maintained atemperature T such that 0.5 ⬍ T/Tc ⬍ 1.
Further cooling was accomplished by adiabatically decompressing the trapping potential in two 5 s stages, with a 5 s delay inbetween to allow excitations to damp. In thefirst stage, the vertical frequency was reduced
to ␻z ⫽ 2␲ ⫻ (1.81 ⫾ 0.05) Hz by simultaneously raising currents IL and IU by identicalamounts and lowering the current IS by afactor of 10. This transferred the dominantsource of magnetic field gradient from thesmall coil to the external coils, with the remaining vertical curvature still due to the
reduced IS. In the second stage, the radialfrequencies were reduced to ␻x ⫽ 2␲ ⫻(0.65 ⫾ 0.05) Hz and ␻y ⫽ 2␲ ⫻ (1.2 ⫾ 0.1)
Hz by raising IL and lowering IU by identicalamounts. The vertical magnetic field gradientand curvature remained constant, but the vertical bias field, Bz, increased. This reduced
the radial confinement due to the scaling ␻r ⬀Br⬘ / Bz1/2 (24, 25).
For currents IS ⫽ 34 mA, IU ⫽ 14 A, andIL ⫽ 44 A, the final gravito-magnetic trap ⫽ 2␲ ⫻had a measured mean frequency ␻(1.12 ⫾ 0.08) Hz and axial bias field Bz ⫽ 17
G. The residual anharmonicities of the trapping potential were small, with ⌬␻/␻ ⫽ 0.1
for 500 ␮m displacements from the trap center. Further radial decompression was notpossible because of a finite trap depth (Fig.
1C) and sensitivity of trap stability to milligauss level radial bias fields.

1514

Fig. 1. Gravito-magnetic trap. (A) Bose-Einsteincondensates were levitated against gravity ⬃5
mm above a 1-cm diameter, 25-turn coil
mounted inside the ultrahigh vacuum chamber
running current IS. Two 10-cm diameter, 20turn coils were mounted outside the vacuum
chamber and were supplied individually withcurrents IU and IL. The vertical separation between the large coils was 10 cm. The 1-cm
diameter coil was mounted radially off-axis
with respect to the pair of 10-cm diameter coilsby ⬃1 cm. This broke the cylindrical symmetryof the trapping potential. Additional bias ﬁeldsof ⬃1 G were applied in the horizontal plane tocancel the radial magnetic ﬁelds generated by
IU and IL on the axis of the small coil and tomaintain a stable trapping potential. 3
g denotes
the direction of gravitational acceleration. (B)Magnetic potential due to IS (short dashed line),
gravitation potential (long dashed line), andjoint vertical potential of the gravito-magnetic
trap (solid line). (C) A radially repulsive potential magnetic potential was generated by running IS alone (dashed line); however, applying aslight antibias ﬁeld with IU modiﬁed the radial
energy proﬁle and created a magnetic ﬁeld
minimum at r ⫽ 0 (solid line). In (A) to (C), thesolid oval denotes the trapped condensate.

After decompression, the partially condensed atomic vapors had ⬃2 ⫻ 105 atoms anda BEC transition temperature Tc ⫽ 3 nK. Tc
was lowered further by reducing the number ofatoms in the cloud (Eq. 1), while maintaining asubstantial condensate fraction at all times(0.5 ⬍ T/Tc ⬍ 1). The atom number was reduced by holding the atoms in the gravitomagnetic trap for up to 200 s. Often, microwave
radiation near the ⱍ1, ⫺1典3 ⱍ2, 0典 transition
was applied to shorten the hold time required toarrive at lower atom number to 10 s. The atom
number reduction was accompanied by cooling,
during which the elastic collision rate (between
thermal atoms and the condensate) dropped
from 0.25 Hz to 0.01 Hz. Therefore, a few
collisions were sufficient to cause evaporationout of the finite depth trap. This cooling was notefficient in the sense of providing a gain inphase-space density but still was capable ofmaintaining thermal equilibrium and lowering
the absolute temperature of the vapor.
Using this technique, we cooled partiallycondensed vapors containing up to 30,000
atoms to temperatures below 1 nK (Figs. 2
and 3). Our lowest measured three-Fig. 2. Picokelvin temperature thermometry.
Partially condensed atomic vapors conﬁned in
the gravito-magnetic trap with (A) 28,000,(B) 16,000, and (C) 2,500 atoms. The onedimensional cross sections (red) were obtainedby integrating the two-dimensional absorption
images of the trapped clouds along the y axis.
Bimodal ﬁts to Eq. 2 (blue) yielded temperatures of (A) 1.05 ⫾ 0.08 nK, (B) 780 ⫾ 50 pK,
and (C) 450 ⫾ 80 pK, where the uncertainty is
due to the ﬁt of an individual image. The absorption imaging light was resonant with theF ⫽ 2 3 F⬘ ⫽ 3 cycling transition for thetrapped atoms and was aligned with the vertical (z) axis. The atoms were optically pumped
into the F ⫽ 2 hyperﬁne level with a pulse
resonant with the F ⫽ 1 3 F⬘ ⫽ 2 transition.
The ﬁeld of view for the absorption images in(A) to (C) is 460 ␮m ⫻ 460 ␮m.

dimensional kinetic temperature was 450 ⫾80 pK for 2500 atoms at a peak condensate
density of 5 ⫻ 1010 atoms/cm3. Under these
conditions, the peak atom-atom interactionenergy was ␮ ⫽ kB ⫻ 33 pK, while the zero
point energy of the harmonic trapping poten k ⫻ 24 pK. Condensates
tial was (1/2)ប ␻
B
released from the gravito-magnetic trap
would expand with energies of this order andtherefore could be characterized by effective
temperatures ⬃30 pK.
Additional cooling would require lowering the trap frequencies further or reducing
the atom number more. However, weakly
confining traps have proven technically dif /2␲
ficult to control such that lowering ␻
substantially below 1 Hz is challenging.
Likewise, because Tc ⬀ N1/3, atom number
reduction by an order of magnitude only results in temperature reduction by a factor of
two. Furthermore, lower temperatures andlower densities are accompanied by collisional equilibrium times approaching 100 s.
 , the condensates in the
Because ␮ ⬇ ប␻
gravito-magnetic trap were in a density regime intermediate between the Thomas ) and ideal (␮ ⬍⬍ ប␻ ) gasFermi (␮ ⬎⬎ ប␻
limits. No simple approximation describes
the condensate wave function, but the number of thermal atoms, Nth ⫽ ␨(3) ⫻ (kB T )3, and the width of their distribution,ប␻

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REPORTS

Fig. 3. Bose-Einstein condensates at picokelvintemperatures. The temperature of more than
60 partially condensed atomic vapors is plottedversus total number of condensed and noncondensed atoms. A solid line at the Bose-Einsteincondensation phase transition temperature (Eq.
1) and a dashed line at 1 nK are provided as
guides. Condensate temperatures were determined from one-dimensional ﬁts to atomic
density cross sections integrated along either
the x (closed circles) or y (open circles) axis (Fig.
2). Differences in the two measured temperatures for a single condensate reﬂect the true
uncertainty of the measurement. Plotted error
bars represent the statistical uncertainty of the
ﬁt. The inset shows that the 1/e condensate
lifetime in the gravito-magnetic trap was limited by one-body processes to 80 ⫾ 5 s.

that the atomic vapors remained close to thermal equilibrium at all times.
In conclusion, we have created long-lived(80 ⫾ 5 s), low-temperature (450 ⫾ 80 pK),
and low-density (5 ⫻ 1010 atoms/cm3) partially condensed atomic vapors using a weakly confining [␻ ⫽ 2␲ ⫻ (1.12 ⫾ 0.08) Hz]
gravito-magnetic trap. These samples arecharacterized by a thermal velocity ⬃1 mm/s,
a speed of sound ⬃100 ␮m/s, and a healing
length limited by the ⬃20-␮m harmonic oscillator length of the trapping potential. Lowtemperature and low-density ensembles areimportant for spectroscopy, metrology, andatom optics. In addition, they are predicted toexperience quantum reflection from material
surfaces (26–28).
References and Notes

1. H. G. Smith, J. O. Wilhelm, Rev. Mod. Phys. 7, 237(1935).
2. K. Darrow, Rev. Mod. Phys. 12, 257 (1940).
3. S. Chu, Rev. Mod. Phys. 70, 685 (1998).
4. C. N. Cohen-Tannoudji, Rev. Mod. Phys. 70, 707(1998).
5. W. D. Phillips, Rev. Mod. Phys. 70, 721 (1998).
6. E. A. Cornell, C. E. Wieman, Rev. Mod. Phys. 74, 875(2002).
7. W. Ketterle, Rev. Mod. Phys. 74, 1131 (2002).
8. B. DeMarco, D. S. Jin, Science 285, 1703 (1999).
9. A. H. Silver, J. E. Zimmerman, Phys. Rev. Lett. 15, 888(1965).

wth ⫽ (2kB T / m␻ ) , in any spatial direction can be related to the temperature, provided that the thermal energy is much larger,than the trap level spacing, kB T ⬎⬎ ប ␻
where ␻ is the trap frequency for the axis
along which wth is measured (22). The ratioof atoms in the condensate, N0, to the total
number of atoms, N ⫽ N0 ⫹ Nth, is also
related to the temperature through N0/N ⫽1 ⫺ (T/Tc)3. N0, Nth, and wth are therefore
completely determined by T and N.
The temperature of the atomic vapors was
extracted by fitting integrated, one-dimensional atomic density cross sections to a bimodal distribution (Fig. 2)

10. K. Schwab, N. Bruckner, R. E. Packard, Nature 386,
585 (1997).
11. O. Avenel, P. Hakonen, E. Varoquaux, Phys. Rev. Lett.
78, 3602 (1997).
12. T. Udem, R. Holzwarth, T. W. Hänsch, Nature 416,
233 (2002).
13. A. S. Oja, O. V. Lounasmaa, Rev. Mod. Phys. 69, 1(1997).
14. M. Kasevich, S. Chu, Phys. Rev. Lett. 69, 1741 (1992).
15. J. Reichel et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 4575 (1995).
16. B. Saubaméa et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 3146 (1997).
17. M.-O. Mewes et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 416 (1996).
18. T. Weber, J. Herbig, M. Mark, H.-C. Nägerl, R. Grimm,
Science 299, 232 (2003).
19. A. Kastberg, W. D. Phillips, S. L. Rolston, R. J. C.
Spreeuw, Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 1542 (1995).
20. P. Treutlein, K. Y. Chung, S. Chu, Phys. Rev. A 63,
051401(R) (2001).
21. E. A. Donley, N. R. Claussen, S. T. Thompson, C. E.
Wieman, Nature 417, 529 (2002).
22. F. Dalfovo, S. Giorgini, L. P. Pitaeskii, S. Stringari, Rev.
Mod. Phys. 71, 463 (1999).
23. T. L. Gustavson et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 020401(2002).
24. Y. V. Gott, M. S. Ioffe, V. G. Tel’kovskii, Nuc. Fus.
Suppl. 3, 1045 (1962).
25. D. E. Pritchard, Phys. Rev. Lett. 51, 1336 (1983).
26. A. Anderson et al., Phys. Rev. A 34, 3513 (1986).
27. J. J. Berkhout et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 63, 1689 (1989).
28. F. Shimizu, Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 987 (2001).
29. This work was funded by the Army Research Ofﬁce,
NSF, Ofﬁce of Naval Research, and NASA. We thank
C. V. Nielsen for experimental assistance and J. K.
Thompson for critical comments on the manuscript.
M.S. acknowledges additional support from the Swiss
National Science Foundation.
7 July 2003; accepted 12 August 2003

2 1/2

n共 x兲 ⫽ N 0⌿20 ⫹N th冑␲w thObservation of Polymer
Conformation Hysteresis in
Extensional Flow
Charles M. Schroeder,1 Hazen P. Babcock,2* Eric S. G. Shaqfeh,1,3
Steven Chu2†
Highly extensible Escherichia coli DNA molecules in planar extensional ﬂow
were visualized in dilute solution by ﬂuorescence microscopy. For a narrow
range of ﬂow strengths, the molecules were found in either a coiled or highly
extended conformation, depending on the deformation history of the polymer.
This conformation hysteresis persists for many polymer relaxation times andis due to conformation-dependent hydrodynamic forces. Polymer conformational free-energy landscapes were calculated from computer simulations andshow two free-energy minima for ﬂow strengths near the coil-stretch transition. Hysteresis cycles may directly inﬂuence bulk-solution stresses and thedevelopment of stress-strain relations for dilute polymer ﬂows.

e ⫺ x /w th (2)22where ⌿20 is a bell-shaped function withwidth w0 that describes the condensate peakmax(1 ⫺ x2 / w20,0)2 for[⌿20 ⫽ (15 / 16) w⫺1
0⫺1/2
a Thomas-Fermi gas and ⌿20 ⫽ w⫺1
0 ␲
2
2
exp(⫺ x / w0 ) for an ideal gas]. The fitted
parameters were T, N, and w0. We checkedthat the fitted temperature did not depend on
the exact choice of the condensate wave function (inverted parabola or gaussian) or theapplication of microwave radiation to reduce
atom number.
All atomic vapors represented in Fig. 3
had a clear bimodal density distribution fromwhich a temperature was reproducibly extracted. The temperatures extracted from onedimensional fits along both radial axes were
nominally the same, empirically indicating

The behavior of long-chain, flexible polymer
molecules in extension-dominated flows has
been the subject of research discussion for
more than 30 years (1). Flows of dilute polyDepartment of Chemical Engineering, 2Departmentsof Physics and Applied Physics, 3Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford,
CA 94305, USA.
1

*Present address: Department of Chemistry andChemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
02138, USA.
†To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: schu@stanford.edu

mer solutions exhibit several interesting macroscopic effects including flow-dependent
viscosity, enhanced normal stresses, and turbulent-drag reduction. Such non-Newtonian
fluid properties result from flow-inducedchanges in the polymer conformations in solution. In short, a flowing fluid will influencepolymer configurations in solution, and theforces exerted back on the fluid are directly
related to the molecular conformations.
Polymer conformations and the resultant
bulk-solution stresses are affected by flow
type. In general, flows with a large rotationalwww.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 301 12 SEPTEMBER 2003

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Appendix B

Quantum reflection from a solid
surface at normal incidence
Reprinted article with permission from:T. A. Pasquini, Y. Shin, C. Sanner, M. Saba, A. Schirotzek, D. E. Pritchard,
and W. Ketterle“Quantum reflection from a solid surface at normal incidence,”
Physical Review Letters 93, 223201 (2004).
Copyright 2004 by the American Physical Society.

113

PRL 93, 223201 (2004)

PHYSICA L R EVIEW LET T ERS

week ending
26 NOVEMBER 2004

Quantum Reflection from a Solid Surface at Normal Incidence
T. A. Pasquini, Y. Shin, C. Sanner, M. Saba, A. Schirotzek, D. E. Pritchard, and W. Ketterle*
Department of Physics, MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms,
and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02139, USA(Received 15 June 2004; published 24 November 2004)
We observed quantum reflection of ultracold atoms from the attractive potential of a solid surface.
Extremely dilute Bose-Einstein condensates of 23 Na, with peak density 1011 –1012 atoms=cm3 , confinedin a weak gravitomagnetic trap were normally incident on a silicon surface. Reflection probabilities of
up to 20% were observed for incident velocities of 1–8 mm=s. The velocity dependence agrees
qualitatively with the prediction for quantum reflection from the attractive Casimir-Polder potential.
Atoms confined in a harmonic trap divided in half by a solid surface exhibited extended lifetime due toquantum reflection from the surface, implying a reflection probability above 50%.
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.93.223201

PACS numbers: 34.50.Dy, 03.75.Be

Quantum reflection is a process in which a particle
reflects from a potential without reaching a classicalturning point. A solid surface provides a long-range
attractive potential for atoms. At separation, r, muchlarger than the atomic radius the potential follows the
Casimir-Polder expression U  C4 =r  3=22 r3 ,
where  is the effective atomic transition wavelength[1]. Classically, an atom incident on such a potential
will be accelerated toward the surface, resulting in inelastic scattering or adsorption. A quantum mechanicaltreatment of an atom-surface collision reveals that theatom is reflected from the purely attractive surface potential if the potential energy changes abruptly on alength scale set by the quantum mechanical wavelength[2 –5]. The condition for significant reflection is that the
local particle wave number normal to the surface, k? p
k21  2mU=h2 , change by more than k? over a distance
1=k? . Here, k1  mv? =h is the normal wave number of
the atom far from the surface, m is the atomic mass, v? isthe normal incident velocity, and h is the Planck constantdivided by 2. The reflection probability, R, tends tounity as the incident velocity tends to zero, R
1  4 4 mv? =h, where 4 is the length scale associatedwith the C4 coefficient, C4  24 h2 =2m. High probability
quantum reflection requires low incident velocity or weak
attraction to the surface, conditions previously realized
only in exceptional systems.
Studies of quantum reflection were first performed
with helium or hydrogen atoms incident on liquid helium
surfaces [6 –9]. The extremely weak interaction strengths
and low mass atoms allowed for quantum reflection at
relatively high incident energies of kB 10 mK [6,9],
where kB is the Boltzmann constant. Reflection of noble
and alkali atoms from a solid surface requires that atoms
be incident with a million times less energy, kB
10 nK. This has been accomplished only by letting untrapped atoms hit solid surfaces at grazing incidence [10 –14], meaning that most of the velocity is directed parallelto the surface and reflection only deflects atoms slightly.
0031-9007=04=93(22)=223201(4)$22.50

Reflection probabilities in excess of 60% have been observed for incidence angles of a few milliradians [12].
Atom-surface potentials have also been studied in thepresence of evanescent light waves generated by totalinternal reflection at a glass surface [15,16].
Normal-incidence quantum reflection of trapped atoms
may be exploited in the construction of novel atomoptical devices. The current generation of atom mirrors
for reflecting, confining, and focusing ultracold atoms
employs evanescent waves produced by total internalreflection of laser light [17] or magnetized materials[18]. An atom-optical device based on quantum reflection
is in a category of its own, as it works using the universal
atom-surface interaction and depends on the long wavelength of ultracold atoms. Past experiments with grazing
incidence atomic beams have demonstrated a mirror [11],a reflective diffraction grating [12], and a hologram basedon quantum reflection [13].
In this Letter, we demonstrate normal-incidence quantum reflection of ultracold sodium atoms. Using the harmonic trapping potential of a gravitomagnetic trap
[19,20], we varied the center of mass velocity of diluteBose-Einstein condensates and induced controlled collisions with a silicon surface at velocities as low as
1 mm=s, corresponding to collision energies of kB 1:5
nanokelvin or 1:2 1013 eV. A reflection probability of
20% was obtained for an incident velocity of 2 mm=s,
realizing an atom mirror. Our experimental results arein qualitative agreement with theoretical predictions
for single atoms incident on a conducting surface.
Additionally, atoms were confined in one dimension bya silicon surface, where lifetime measurements indicate
reflection probabilities in excess of 50%.
Bose-Einstein condensates of 23 Na atoms were prepared and transferred into a gravitomagnetic trap, comprising a single coil and three external bias fields, as
described in Ref. [19]. Mounted 1 cm above the centerof the single coil was a 20 m thick N-type doped
polished Si (100) surface with a resistivity of
1–10  cm. For typical loading parameters, condensates

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containing 3 105 atoms were confined 200 m to one
side of the surface in a harmonic trap characterized by
!? ; !y ; !z   2 10; 10; 6:5 Hz, where !? is thehorizontal trap frequency perpendicular to the surface,!y is the horizontal trap frequency parallel to the surface,
and !z is the vertical trap frequency. At this point, !?
and !y were adjusted between 11 to 2 Hz by changing thevertical bias field as described in Ref. [19]. The position of
the trap center relative to the surface was controlled byapplying a bias field, B? , perpendicular to the surface[21]. Empirically, we find that near the surface the noncondensed fraction of the atomic cloud is reduced by the‘‘surface evaporation’’ effect, in which adsorption preferentially removes the hottest atoms from the cloud [22,23].
The dipole mode of a harmonically trapped condensate
is identical to the behavior of a pendulum; atoms oscillatewith amplitude A and trap period T?  2=!? . The
presence of a surface within the trapping potential dramatically alters the dipole oscillation in the same way awall would alter the oscillation of a pendulum. BoseEinstein condensates undergoing dipole oscillation in
the gravitomagnetic trap were made to collide with thesolid silicon surface as described in Fig. 1(a). Collision
with the surface occurred at time C T? =4 with incident velocity v?  A!? 1:5 mm=s. This phenomenon
is observed in Fig. 2. Near C , two distinct velocity
classes were visible corresponding to atoms in the initialcondensate and atoms reflected from the surface. The
simultaneous presence of incident and reflected atoms is
explained by the fact that the back of the condensate hits

FIG. 1. Experimental schematic. Atoms were confined in a
gravitomagnetic trap [19] with trap frequencies ranging from2 2; 2; 6:5 Hz to 2 11; 11; 6:5 Hz, near a 20 m
thick Si surface. (a) Quantum reflection was studied by inducing a dipole oscillation of amplitude A perpendicular to thesurface and centered on the surface. The incident velocity wasvaried from 1–8 mm=s by adjusting A. (b) Atoms were loaded
into a surface trap with zero incident velocity using an intermediate trap located at A=2. Atoms initially confined at a
distance A from the surface were made to undergo a dipole
oscillation of amplitude A=2 by shifting the trap center halfway
to the surface. After holding for half a trap period, T? =2 , theatoms were incident on the surface with near zero velocity. The
trap center was again shifted by A=2 towards the surface,trapping the atoms against the Si wafer. To ensure contact
between atoms and the surface, the center of the final trap
was located 10% of the original condensate size beyond the
Si surface.

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the surface 40 ms after the front end due to the
60 m condensate diameter and slow (1:5 mm=s) velocity. At collision, the harmonic motion of the atoms wasphase shifted by 2  !? C , as seen in Fig. 2(b).
The reflected atom cloud was smaller than the incident
one and had a comparable density. In some instances, thecloud appeared to have a bimodal distribution, indicatingthat coherence might be preserved in the collision. The
reflected atoms continued to oscillate in the trap with theoriginal amplitude, suggesting that atoms reflected specularly and that the kinetic energy was conserved during
the collision. Eventually, the reflected atom cloud underwent a second collision with the surface at T? =2 after
the first collision. Additional collisions were not observed
as the atom number fell below our detection limit.
We observed reflected fractions that varied from
0–20% over the incident velocity range of 1–8 mm=s,corresponding to a collision energy ofkB 1 100 nK, for atoms with a peak density of21012 cm3 in a 2 3:3; 2:5; 6:5 Hz trap. Figure 3
shows the measured reflection probability, defined as the

FIG. 2. Atoms reflecting from a Si surface. Atoms confined
70 m from a Si surface were transferred into a harmonic
trap centered on the surface with 2 3:3; 2:5; 6:5 Hz. The
dipole oscillation of the condensate was interrupted periodically by collisions with the surface, which reversed the cloud’s
center of mass velocity. After a variable hold time, atoms werereleased from the trap, fell below the edge of the surface andwere imaged with resonant light after 26 ms time of flight. The
position of the atoms in time of flight is the sum of the in-trap
position at the time of release and the product of the releasevelocity and time of flight. (a) Time-of-flight images of atoms
after increasing hold times show the partial transfer of atoms
from the initial condensate (right) into the reflected cloud (left)
as the collision occurs. The separation is due to the reversed
velocity. The vertical line shows the horizontal location of thesurface. The field of view is 1.4 mm wide. (b) The time-offlight positions of the incident and reflected atom clouds
relative to the surface are well modeled by a single particle
undergoing specular reflection in a half harmonic trap (solidline). During collision, the behavior deviates from the single
particle model because of the finite cloud diameter of 60 m.
A second reflection is visible at 270 ms.

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FIG. 3. Reflection probability vs incident velocity. Data werecollected in a magnetic trap with trap frequencies 23:3; 2:5; 6:5 Hz. Incident and reflected atom numbers wereaveraged over several shots. Vertical error bars show the standard deviation of the mean of six measurements. Horizontal
error bars reflect the uncertainty in deducing v? from theapplied magnetic field B? . The solid curve is a numericalcalculation for individual atoms incident on a conducting
surface as described in the text.

ratio of reflected atom number to incident atom number,as a function of incident velocity. The reflection probability increases with decreasing velocity, a signature ofquantum reflection. Similar behavior was observed foratoms with a peak density of 7 1012 cm3 in a 2
10:5; 10; 6:5 Hz trap. For comparison, we include a line
in Fig. 3 showing the calculated reflection probability fora single atom incident on a conducting wall. The reflection probability was obtained by numerically solving the
Schrödinger equation with the Casimir-Polder potential
using the C4 coefficient calculated for sodium atoms
incident on a conducting surface, C4  9:1 1056 Jm4[1] and   590 nm. This model ignores the harmonic
trapping potential, interatomic forces, and electrostatic
effects of adsorbed alkali atoms on the surface, whichhave recently been shown to distort the long-range potential in the case of Rb atoms on insulating surfaces[24,25]. Furthermore, the doped Si surface has a finite
conductivity, leading to a reduction in C4 of order
20%–40% and a slightly higher reflection probability
than a perfect conductor [26].
According to the model, reflection of atoms with
2 mm=s velocity occurs at a distance of 1 m fromthe surface, where the full potential is approximated towithin 10% by U  C4 =r4 . The range of velocities we
could explore is not large enough to investigate the region
closer to the surface where the potential has a 1=r3
dependence. It should be noted that without retardation,
the reflection probability would be more than a hundred
times lower. Ultimately, quantum reflection may be a
powerful tool to characterize atom-surface interactions.
We also observe dynamics, not present in single-atom
quantum reflection, when a Bose-Einstein condensate isincident on a surface. For incident velocity below
2 mm=s, the measured reflection probability remained

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FIG. 4. Lifetime in the Si surface trap. Solid (open) circles
show the remaining atom fraction vs time for a 2 9; 9; 6:5[2 3:3; 2:5; 6:5] Hz trapping potential with an initial atom
number 3 104 (9 104 ). The solid line exponential fit gives alifetime of 23 ms (170 ms) for the high (low) frequency trap
geometry. The lifetime for atoms confined far from the surface
exceeded 20 s for either geometry.

approximately constant between 10% and 15%, in contrast with theoretical predictions and previous observation. This discrepancy may be due to collective
excitations of the atoms or acceleration from the harmonic trapping potential during the collision. The shapeand density of the reflected atom cloud, as can be seen in
Fig. 2(a), were not reproducible from shot to shot.
Reflected clouds were excited and sometimes fragmented
and higher velocity incident atoms tended to produce
more dense reflected clouds, which may imply that an
excitation occurred during the collision that was more
pronounced at low collision velocities.
Furthermore, the role of the mean-field interactionenergy should be considered. When a condensate is released from a trapping potential, the repulsive mean-fieldenergy is converted into kinetic energy, imparting to theatoms an average velocity equal to the local speed ofp
sound, c  gn=m, where g  4h2 a=m is the coupling
parameter associated with atom-atom interaction, and ais the s-wave scattering length. We expect that the meanfield energy will be released during the collision so that,even for a condensate with zero center of mass velocity,
the incident velocity may be characterized by the speed ofsound. For Na condensates at a density of 2 1012 cm3 ,this velocity is 0:6 mm=s.
In the limit of zero incident velocity, a surface acting as
an ideal atom mirror could be used to construct a physicalcontainer for ultracold atoms and Bose-Einstein condensates. To examine the feasibility of confining atoms withsolid surfaces, atoms were held in a magnetic trap divided
in half by the Si surface. The transfer procedure is
described schematically in Fig. 1(b). Figure 4 shows theremaining fraction of atoms in the trap as a function ofhold time for two different magnetic trap parameters, one
at high trap frequency, 2 9; 9; 6:5, and the other at
low trap frequency, 2 3:3; 2:5; 6:5. After an initial

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PHYSICA L R EVIEW LET T ERS

loss due to the nonzero incident velocity (not shown), theatom number was found to decrease exponentially. The
lifetime for the high (low) frequency trap was 23 ms(170 ms). We attribute the losses of atoms to scatteringwith the surface and adsorption. Fluctuating electromagnetic fields in a (semi)conductor can also induce losses ofatoms due to thermally induced spin flips (see, e.g.,
Ref. [25]). However, at the large magnetic bias field of
10 G, atoms can be ejected from the trap only withfields of frequency 7 MHz. At an average distance of
15 m from surface, the spin flip decay rate should notexceed 0:1 Hz, a negligible effect in the present experiment and not a significant limitation for future ones.
In order to estimate the effect of quantum reflection on
the lifetime of atoms in the trap, we assume that theatoms are incident on the surface with a velocity proportional to the speed of sound in the condensate and that thegeometry of the trapped atom cloud is independent of
the trap frequency. The atom loss rate to the surface may
be expressed as dN=dt / nSc1  R, where S isthe contact area between surface and condensate. From
this rate equation, we express the lifetime as L 
N=dN=dt  !T? =1  R, where ! is an undetermined numerical parameter independent of the trap frequency. An identical equation would describe a thermal
cloud of atoms. Comparing the ratio L =T? for the twodifferent trap frequencies, we cancel out the constant !.
Assuming the reflection probability for the highfrequency trap, Rh  0, gives a value of Rl  60% for
the low-frequency trap reflection probability. A morereasonable assumption of Rh  20% gives a value ofRl  70%.
The results presented here demonstrate that large quantum reflection probability is not confined to exotic surfaces or extreme angles of incidence: a simple siliconwafer at room temperature can function as an atomic
mirror at normal incidence, reflecting ultracold atoms.
The construction of practical atom-optical devices basedon normal-incidence quantum reflection requires evenhigher reflection probabilities than demonstrated in thiswork. Such improvements are predicted for low-densityand extremely thin surfaces [4], and have been observedwith patterned surfaces, where a reduction in surface
density by etching increased the maximum reflection
probability by a factor of 2 [11]. Because reflection occurs
far from the surface, uniformity of the surface is not a
critical factor, as roughness is averaged over the atomic
wavelength.
Surfaces are traditionally considered enemies of cold
atoms: laser cooling and atom optics have developed
thanks to magnetic and optical traps that confine atoms
with nonmaterial walls in ultrahigh vacuum environments designed to prevent contact with surfaces.
Paradoxically, it turns out that in the extreme quantum
limit of nanokelvin matter waves, a surface at room
temperature might become a useful device to manipulate
atoms.

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This work was supported by NSF, ONR, ARO,DARPA, and NASA. We thank A. E. Leanhardt for insightful discussion and J. M. Doyle for a critical readingof the manuscript. M. S. acknowledges additional support
from the Swiss National Science Foundation. C. S. acknowledges the support of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes.

*Electronic address: http://cua.mit.edu/ketterle_group/[1] H. B. G. Casimir and P. Polder, Phys. Rev. 73, 360 (1948).
[2] D. P. Clougherty and W. Kohn, Phys. Rev. B 46, 4921
(1992).
[3] C. Carraro and M.W. Cole, Prog. Surf. Sci. 57, 61 (1998).
[4] A. Mody, M. Haggerty, J. M. Doyle, and E. J. Heller,
Phys. Rev. B 64, 085418 (2001).
[5] H. Friedrich, G. Jacoby, and C. G. Meister, Phys. Rev. A
65, 032902 (2002).
[6] V. U. Nayak, D. O. Edwards, and N. Masuhara, Phys. Rev.
Lett. 50, 990 (1983).
[7] J. J. Berkhout et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 63, 1689 (1989).
[8] J. M. Doyle et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 67, 603 (1991).
[9] I. A. Yu et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 71, 1589 (1993).
[10] A. Anderson et al., Phys. Rev. A 34, 3513(R) (1986).
[11] F. Shimizu, Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 987 (2001).
[12] F. Shimizu and J. Fujita, J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 71, 5 (2002).
[13] F. Shimizu and J. I. Fujita, Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 123201(2002).
[14] V. Druzhinina and M. DeKieviet, Phys. Rev. Lett. 91,
193202 (2003).
[15] A. Landragin et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 1464 (1996).
[16] B. Segev, R. Cote, and M. G. Raizen, Phys. Rev. A 56,
3350(R) (1997).
[17] J. P. Dowling and J. Gea-Banacloche, Adv. At. Mol. Opt.
Phys. 37, 1 (1996).
[18] E. A. Hinds and I. G. Hughes, J. Phys. D 32, R119 (1999).
[19] A. E. Leanhardt et al., Science 301, 1513 (2003).
[20] C. R. Monroe, Ph.D. thesis, University of Colorado,
Boulder, 1992.
[21] The trap center to surface separation exhibited a linear
dependence on B? . The relative position of the surface
was determined by loading a condensate into the trap,
slowly moving the trap center toward the surface, holding for several trap periods, and measuring the remaining
atom number. As the separation became smaller than thecondensate radius, atoms were lost from the trap due toadsorption on the surface. The surface position was thepoint at which no atoms remained in the trap, and was ingood agreement with the visual location of the surface
determined by imaging. The position of the surface wasdetermined to within a 10 m.
[22] O. J. Luiten et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 70, 544 (1993).
[23] D. M. Harber, J. M. McGuirk, J. M. Obrecht, and E. A.
Cornell, J. Low Temp. Phys. 133, 229 (2003).
[24] J. M. McGuirk, D. M. Harber, J. M. Obrecht, and E. A.
Cornell, Phys. Rev. A 69, 062905 (2004).
[25] Y. J. Lin, I. Teper, C. Chin, and V. Vuletic, Phys. Rev. Lett.
92, 050404 (2004).
[26] Z. C. Yan, A. Dalgarno, and J. F. Babb, Phys. Rev. A 55,
2882 (1997).

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Appendix C

Low velocity quantum reflection of
Bose-Einstein condensates
Reprinted article with permission from:T. A. Pasquini, M. Saba, G. -B Jo, Y. Shin, W. Ketterle, and D. E. Pritchard“Low velocity quantum reflection of Bose-Einstein condensates,”
Physical Review Letters 97, 093201 (2006).
Copyright 2004 by the American Physical Society.

119PRL 97, 093201 (2006)

PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

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Low Velocity Quantum Reflection of Bose-Einstein Condensates
T. A. Pasquini, M. Saba, G.-B. Jo, Y. Shin, W. Ketterle, and D. E. Pritchard
Department of Physics, MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms, and Research Laboratory of Electronics,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA*T. A. Savas
NanoStructures Laboratory and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA

N. Mulders
Department of Physics, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware 19716, USA(Received 15 March 2006; published 30 August 2006)
We study how interactions affect the quantum reflection of Bose-Einstein condensates. A patternedsilicon surface with a square array of pillars resulted in high reflection probabilities. For incident velocities
greater than 2:5 mm=s, our observations agreed with single-particle theory. At velocities below 2:5 mm=s,
the measured reflection probability saturated near 60% rather than increasing towards unity as predictedby the accepted theoretical model. We extend the theory of quantum reflection to account for the meanfield interactions of a condensate which suppresses quantum reflection at low velocity. The reflectedcondensates show collective excitations as recently predicted.
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.093201

PACS numbers: 34.50.Dy, 03.75.Kk

Recent years have seen an explosive growth of experiments with cold atoms near surfaces, driven by the desire
to miniaturize atomic physics experiments using so-called‘‘atom chips’’ [1], for practical applications in magnetometry [2] and atom interferometry [3]. The Casimir-Polderinteraction becomes important close to the surface an atom
chip [4 –6] and offers both fundamental and technicalrelevance. Fundamental studies include the use of BoseEinstein condensates to determine the Casimir-Polder potential [7,8], to observe its modification by thermal radiation [9], and the intriguing question if unity quantum
reflection can be achieved at extremely low temperatures.
Quantum reflection is the phenomena by which an atom isaccelerated so violently by the attractive surface potentialthat it reflects from the potential rather than being drawn
into the surface [10 –13]. Current models of quantum reflection treat the atom-surface interaction as a single-atom
potential, and predict a monotonic rise to unity reflection atzero velocity. However, in a recent study of quantum
reflection of Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) [14], thereflection probability saturated at 12% at low velocity[15]. A Letter simulating quantum reflection of BECs
demonstrated excitations during reflection as a result of
mean-field interactions but could not explain the low reflectivity [16].
In this work, we address how quantum reflection of
BECs differs from the reflection of single atoms and discuss the role of interatomic interactions before, during, andafter reflection. Compared to our previous study, wheresome effects of interactions were already observed but not
characterized or explained [14], we are now more sensitive, having improved the reflection probability to 67% by
0031-9007=06=97(9)=093201(4)using a pillared silicon surface, in the spirit of experimentswith grazing-incidence neon atoms on ridged silicon [17–19]. In contrast to single-particle theory, we observe asaturation of the reflection probability at low incident
velocity, suggesting that the description of quantum reflection is incomplete. We propose a simple theoretical extension incorporating a mean-field potential which is found todramatically suppress the reflection probability near zero
velocity. Further, we observe that interactions between theincident and reflected condensate lead to predicted collective excitations of the reflected condensate [16] and incoherent scattering.
Bose-Einstein condensates of 23 Na atoms were preparedand transferred into a loosely confining gravitomagnetic trap, comprising a single coil and three externalbias fields, as described in Ref. [20]. For typical loading parameters, condensates with N  1  106 atoms
were confined 1 cm above the coil in a harmonic trap
characterized by angular frequencies !? ; !y ; !z  
2  4:2; 5:0; 8:2 Hz, where directions ?; y; z are defined in Fig. 1. At this point, !? and !y were adjusted bychanging the vertical bias field as described in Ref. [20].
Typical densities in the trap were 5  1012 cm3 anddiameters were 150 m. A silicon surface attached to a
micrometric, motorized linear actuator was mounted
1 cm above the single coil. The position of the surface
relative to the center of the coil was adjustable during theexperiment as shown in Fig. 1(a).
The surface used in this experiment, provided by the
MIT Nanostructures Laboratory, was a pillar structure
etched into single-crystal silicon. The structure was createdby interference lithography and various subsequent etching

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1.0

(b)

(a)

1.0

Reflection ProbabilityySurfaceweek ending
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PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERSPRL 97, 093201 (2006)

z

g
d
1 µm

FIG. 1 (color online). Experimental schematic. (a) Atoms wereconfined in a gravitomagnetic trap near a pillared Si surface.
Atoms were accelerated towards the surface by displacing thetrapping potential a distance d (greatly exaggerated) so that itwas centered on the surface. The surface was mounted on atranslation stage and could be removed at any point for imaging.
(b) Scanning electron micrograph of the pillared Si surface usedin this experiment.

steps [21–23]. Figure 1(b) shows the final surface as anarray of 1 m tall, 50 nm diameter pillars spaced at
500 nm. Such a surface should provide a Casimir potential
approximately 1% of the value for a solid Si surface. A
dilute surface is expected to exhibit enhanced quantum
reflection.
Studying the reflection properties of the surface requires
a controlled collision. After loading the condensate into thetrap, the surface was moved to a desired distance d fromthe trap center. By changing the bias field B? appropriately, a dipole oscillation centered on the surface was
induced [14]. After waiting T? =4  2=4!? the atoms
hit the surface with velocity v?  d!? . By varying !?
between 2  2 and 2  4 Hz and d over 50 m to
1 mm, velocities in the range of 0.5 to 26 mm=s could bestudied. The reflection probability was calculated as theratio of the average reflected atom number to the average
incident atom number [24]. The reflection probability
along with data for a solid silicon surface [14] are shownin Fig. 2. The pillared surface shows higher reflectivity
over a wider range of incident velocity, as expected. The
reflection maximum is 67% for a velocity of 1:2 mm=s,
and reflection probabilities above 10% were measured atvelocities up to 20 mm=s. Below 3 mm=s, the reflection
probability flattens near 55%, qualitatively similar to the
behavior of the solid surface where the reflectivity flattenednear 12% in the same velocity range.
Reflection probabilities for a single atom were calculated by numerically solving the Schrödinger equation for
a 1D potential [25]. The surface potentials of the CasimirPolder form C4 =r4 are obtained using CSi
4  6:2 
1056 J m4 for bulk silicon [26] and combining contributions from both the pillar layer and the bulk substrate. We
average the density of the material before calculating thepotential, simulating the surface as a 1 m thick overlayerof material with C4  0:01  CSi
4 added to a semi-infinite
Si
slab of material with C4  C4 . The resulting reflection
probability curve is shown in Fig. 2 as dashed gray lines. A

0.8
0.6

0.8

0.4
0.2

0.6

0
0

2

4

6

20

25

0.4
0.2
0
0

5

10

15

Velocity (mm/s)

FIG. 2. Reflection probability vs incident velocity. Data werecollected in a magnetic trap with trap frequencies 2 
2:0; 2:5; 8:2 Hz (squares) and 2  4:2; 5:0; 8:2 Hz (triangles). For comparison, data from Ref. [14] for reflection off
a solid silicon surface are shown as circles. Incident and reflected
atom numbers were averaged over several shots. For clarity error
bars for data below 5 mm=s are shown only in the inset plot,
which has a different horizontal axis to emphasize the low
velocity data. Systematic uncertainty in the velocity due toresidual motion is approximately 10%. Theoretical curves aredescribed in the text.

model which averages the 3D potential of the pillars to
obtain a 1D potential shows similar results. Further, thesesimulations show that the reflection probability depends
mainly on the diluted pillar layer and only weakly on thebulk material underneath or the height or arrangement of
the pillars. Unlike grazing-incidence experiments [17–19],
here the de Broglie wavelength, dB ’ 1 m, exceeds the
spacing of the pillars and we are insensitive to the surface
structure.
Calculations predict that the reflection probability approaches unity for low incident velocity. This is in contrast
to our observation that the reflection probability saturates
below 2:5 mm=s for both the pillared and solid surfaces. It
was suggested that this saturation is due to low velocity excitations which smear out the condensate density; although
the reflectivity approaches unity, some reflected atoms
would appear in a diffuse cloud which may fall below a
detection threshold [16]. However, this could explain ourprevious results [14] only when we assume a density
threshold for detection of 0:25  n0  1012 cm3 , wheren0 is the central condensate density, which is 20 times
higher than the lowest densities we are able to detect [20].
There is a finite-size correction to the standard description of quantum reflection, but it is too small to account forour observations. For an incident atom cloud of size d, thesmallest incident velocity is h=md, approximately
0:2 mm=s for our parameters. We conclude that a singleparticle description cannot account for our low velocity
data and now discuss possible effects due to the condensate’s mean-field interaction.
The mean-field potential is taken to be that of a condensate at rest with a fully reflecting wall as a boundary

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Potential (nK)condition. The condensate’s density decays towards zero at
the wall over a characteristic length scale given by thehealing length, . The atoms at the edge of the condensate
thereby acquire a velocity given by h=m, which isapproximately equal to the speed of sound c. If the healing
length is much larger than the relevant range of the
Casimir-Polder potential, approximately 1 m as definedby the so-called badlands region [13], one would assume
that the mean-field potential simply accelerates the atoms.
Atoms leaving the condensate enter the region of quantum
reflection with an incident velocity obtained from
mv2 =2  U  mc2 . This model would shift the singlepatom quantum reflection curves by the velocity v  2c,
which is  1:5 mm=s for our parameters. This shift is too
small to explain the low reflectivity at our lowest velocities. Additionally, the assumption that the healing length
be much larger than the distance at which quantum reflection occurs is not valid for our data.
In order to fully account for interaction effects, we
calculate the quantum reflection probability using a composite potential which includes both the Casimir-Polder
potential and the mean-field potential [Fig. 3(a)]. The
predicted reflection probability is shown in Fig. 3(b). At
high velocities (>3 mm=s), quantum reflection occurs
close to the surface where the mean-field potential plays
no role. As the velocity is reduced, the point of reflection
moves outward, into the region where the mean-field potential ‘‘softens’’ the Casimir-Polder potential, dramatically reducing the reflectivity. At very low velocities(<0:1 mm=s), when the badlands region is far from thesurface, the predicted reflection resembles the reflection

0

(a)

-2
-4

Reflection Prob.

0

2

4
6
Position ( m)

8

1

10

(b)

0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0

1

2
3
Velocity (mm/s)

45FIG. 3 (color online). Mean-field model for quantum reflectionof condensates. (a) The trapped condensate provides a repulsive
mean-field energy which is a constant away from the surface
and, within the healing length , drops to zero. The dashed curveshows this mean-field potential set to zero at infinity. Thispotential combined with the Casimir potential (dotted curve)
creates the composite potential (solid curve) which we use tomodel reflection in the presence of a condensate. (b) The reflection probabilities from the same potentials for low velocities.

week ending
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probability from the mean-field potential of the condensate
rather than from the Casimir-Polder potential and becomes
unity at zero velocity [15]. This model predicts well,without any free parameter, the velocities below which
we have observed saturation of the reflectivity for boththe solid and pillared surface as shown by the dot-dashedlines in Fig. 2. The data do not extend far enough into thevery low velocity regime to confirm the model’s predictionof a sharp drop.
The model does not include the effects of the moving
condensate, its observed collective excitations, or the distortion of the condensate wave function by surface attraction or the loss of atoms to the surface.
The calculated curves are not in quantitative agreementwith the experimental data; the observed reflection probabilities are lower, even at high velocity. A possible explanation is the modification of the potential by stray electricfields, caused by sodium atoms deposited on the surface(adatoms). Recently, the partial ionization of rubidium
adatoms by bulk silicon has been shown empirically to
produce an electric field of several V=cm at 10 m fromthe surface [5]. This electric field, which falls off as 1=r2 ,will produce an additional potential, VA r  A=r4 ,which will reduce the reflection probability. To accountfor stray electric fields, we fit the high velocity data for thepillared (solid) surface using a potential Vtot  0:01 
4
4
Si 4
4
CSi
4 =r  A=r (Vtot  C4 =r  A=r ). We find for theSipillared (solid) surface a value of A of 0:02  CSi
4 (C4 )
corresponding to a stray field 10 V=cm (70 V=cm) at
1 m, which scales to 0:1 V=cm (0:7 V=cm) at 10 m,
smaller than measured for rubidium. We may expect agreater factor between the fields measured for a solid anddilute surface owing to the factor of 100 difference insurface area. However, the strength of the fields depends
on the specific geometry, surface material, and contamination level, which may vary between the two experiments.
Because of experimental limitations, we were not able toconfirm the magnitude of these stray fields or their sole
responsibility for the observed discrepancy, and include
their effect as a phenomenological fitting parameter for thehigh velocity data.
If we combine the stronger surface potential with themean-field potential, we have a phenomenological model
which is consistent with all our data, shown in Fig. 2 assolid lines. It would be very interesting to test this model byvarying the density over a large range and try to observe thepredicted decrease of the saturation velocity for lower
density. We could not study reflection at lower density
due to a rapid decrease of the signal-to-noise ratio.
Another aspect of interactions are collisions between
incident and reflected parts of the condensate. This leads
to a standing wave during the collision, for a time inversely
proportional to the incident velocity. As this time becomescomparable to the transverse and vertical trap periods,
vortex rings, solitons, and other excitations may form,
distorting the cloud [16]. In our experiment, this veloc-

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week ending
1 SEPTEMBER 2006

reducing the density of the surface and would require
further advances in fabrication techniques.
This work was supported by NSF, ONR, DARPA, andNASA. We thank S. Will for experimental assistance, M.
Zwierlein for experimental suggestions, and R. Scott and
M. Fromhold for useful discussions.

FIG. 4. Menagerie of reflection effects. (a) –(c) As the incident
velocity is reduced, the reflected condensate becomes increasingly excited. (d) By removing the surface at the moment ofreflection, we can see both the incident (left) and reflected (right)
condensates. The reflection probability is 30%. (e) The collisionof the incident and reflected condensates produces a strongs-wave scattering halo at low velocity, visible here T? =4 afterreflection. The surface is still present on the left in this image.
Half of the halo is missing due to surface reflection or absorption. (f) With the surface removed, the scattered atoms remain in
the trap after an additional half trap period and appear reversed
in position and velocity. Field of view for images (a)–(c) is
540 m and for (d)–(f) is 800 m; the dashed line is the
position of the surface (moved for imaging) at the moment ofreflection.

ity is approximately 2 mm=s. The higher reflection efficiency of the pillared surface in excess of 50% allowed
us to observe these collective effects. At high velocities(>4 mm=s), we observe that the reflected cloud appears,
apart from diminished size and number, similar to thebimodal distribution of the incident cloud, shown in
Fig. 4(a). As the incident velocity is reduced, as inFigs. 4(b) and 4(c), the cloud develops a complex surface
mode excitation [27].
Further, we observe elastic s-wave scattering between
atoms in the incident and reflected condensates leading tohalos [28,29], which we observe after a hold time T? =4[Figs. 4(e) and 4(f)].
We also performed the experiment using an aerogel
surface. Aerogels are electrically insulating, randomly
structured, silica foams with a density of 2% of bulk
silica [30] and should display reflection properties similar
to the pillared surface. We were unable to observe quantum
reflection above our detection threshold of 2%, an effectwe attribute to uncontrolled patch charges which strongly
distort the Casimir-Polder potential.
We conclude with an outlook on how to further increase
the reflection probability for condensates. Our model predicts improvements for longer healing lengths. Improvements to the reflectivity could also be made by further*Electronic address: http://cua.mit.edu/ketterle_group/[1] R. Folman et al., Adv. At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 48, 263 (2002).
[2] S. Wildermuth et al., Nature (London) 435, 440 (2005).
[3] Y. Shin et al., Phys. Rev. A 72, 021604(R) (2005).
[4] D. M. Harber et al., J. Low Temp. Phys. 133, 229 (2003).
[5] J. M. McGuirk et al., Phys. Rev. A 69, 062905 (2004).
[6] Y. J. Lin et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 050404 (2004).
[7] D. M. Harber et al., Phys. Rev. A 72, 033610 (2005).
[8] H. Oberst et al., Phys. Rev. A 71, 052901 (2005).
[9] M. Antezza, L. P. Pitaevskii, and S. Stringari, Phys. Rev.
Lett. 95, 113202 (2005).
[10] D. P. Clougherty and W. Kohn, Phys. Rev. B 46, 4921
(1992).
[11] C. Carraro and M. W. Cole, Prog. Surf. Sci. 57, 61 (1998).
[12] A. Mody et al., Phys. Rev. B 64, 085418 (2001).
[13] H. Friedrich, G. Jacoby, and C. G. Meister, Phys. Rev. A
65, 032902 (2002).
[14] T. A. Pasquini et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 223201 (2004).
[15] The reflection probability 50%, inferred by measuring
the lifetime of atoms confined against a silicon surface[14], may be a result of reflection from the mean-fieldpotential at the edge of the condensate rather than from theCasimir-Polder potential of the surface.
[16] R. G. Scott et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 073201 (2005).
[17] F. Shimizu and J. Fujita, J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 71, 5 (2002).
[18] H. Oberst et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 013203 (2005).
[19] D. Kouznetsov and H. Oberst, Phys. Rev. A 72, 013617(2005).
[20] A. E. Leanhardt et al., Science 301, 1513 (2003).
[21] H. I. Smith et al., J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 9, 2992 (1991).
[22] M. L. Schattenburg, R. J. Aucoin, and R. C. Fleming,
J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 13, 3007 (1995).
[23] T. A. Savas et al., J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 14, 4167 (1996).
[24] Atom numbers were obtained by optically pumping theatoms from the state jF  1i to jF  2i. After a wait timeof 2 ms to allow optically dense regions of the cloud to
expand, the distributions were imaged using the jF  2i to
jF  3i cycling transition.
[25] F. Shimizu, Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 987 (2001).
[26] Z. C. Yan, A. Dalgarno, and J. F. Babb, Phys. Rev. A 55,
2882 (1997).
[27] A movie of reflection is available at http://cua.mit.edu/
ketterle_group/Animation_folder/QRMovie.wmv.
[28] K. Gibble, S. Chang, and R. Legere, Phys. Rev. Lett. 75,
2666 (1995).
[29] A. P. Chikkatur et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 483 (2000).
[30] J. Fricke and A. Emmerling, J. Am. Ceram. Soc. 75, 2027
(1992).

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Appendix D

Pillared surface Mathematica code
The following Mathematica code was used to generate the various models of the pillaredsurface.

The potential of a pillar
Evaluation of a 3D pillar at a point
Define the size of the pillar in nanometers. Zero is defined at the bottom center of the pillar.
Integrate over the regions that have material; assume cylindrical symmetry. The expression
to integrate is the atom-atom interaction potential.
widx=50;

widy=50; widz=1000;

ToIntegrate[x,y,z]=(x*x+y*y+z*z)^(-7/2);
OneIntegral[y,z]=Integrate[2*ToIntegrate[x,y,z],{x,0,widx/2}];
TwoIntegral[y_,zpos_]=Integrate[OneIntegral[y,z],{z,zpos-widz,zpos}];
OnePillar[ypos_,zpos_]:=Integrate[TwoIntegral[y,zpos],{y,ypos-widy/2,ypos+widy/2}]
Calculation of the pillar potential on a grid
The potential should not be calculated inside of the pillar. The potential will only becalculated in a quarter plane (with the pillar defining the space). Data are stored in an arrayfor later retrieval. This section is repeated for the medium grid size where GridSizeNano=50,
GridMaxY=5000, and GridMaxZ=12000. The arrays must be padded for use later; thespace left by the pillar must be filled.
GridSizeNano=5;
GridMaxY=500;

GapSize=25;

GridMaxZ=2000;

k=1;

PillarPotentialArray=Table[0,{y,NEvalPts},{x,3}];125

CalculatePotentialAtThePoint:={
PillarPotentialArray[[k,1]]=yposeval;
PillarPotentialArray[[k,2]]=zposeval;
PillarPotentialArray[[k,3]]=N[OnePillar[yposeval,zposeval]];k++};
For[ny=0,ny<=GridMaxY,
For[nz=0,nz<=GridMaxZ,
yposeval=ny;zposeval=nz;
If[((yposeval>(widy+GapSize))||(zposeval>(widz+GapSize)))CalculatePotentialAtThePoint,dummy=0];nz=nz+GridSizeNano];
ny=ny+GridSizeNano];
Export["C:\PillarPotentialSmall.dat", PillarPotentialArray];
Conversion factors and constants
The original integrals were done with C4=1 and the grid in nm.
C4=4.48*10^(-33);
ConvertToKelvin=(10/pi)*C4*10^(36);
ConvertToNm=.00529;
ConvertToAu=1/ConvertToNm;
ConvertDegKToHartree=3.16681*10^(-6);
ConvertToHartree=ConvertToKelvin*ConvertDegKToHartree;m=22.99*1.66 10^-27/(9.11*10^-31);
v0=2.9979*10^8/137;
rref=2.3 10^-9/(5.29*10^-11);
lengthscale=945.18;
Maxval=80/lengthscale;Interpolation of numerical data to give potential at any point
Numeric results for the single pillar are only good to around 5 µm. For a given position,
the correct array must be interpolated.
PotentialSmall=Interpolation[PillarPotentialSmall];PotentialMedium=Interpolation[PillarPotentialMedium];
GetPotential[yeval_,zeval_]:= If[((yeval>500)||(zeval>1500)),
ConvertToHartree*PotentialMedium[yeval,zeval],
126

ConvertToHartree*PotentialSmall[yeval,zeval]]
PillarPotential[xpos_,ypos_,zpos_]:=If[(((Sqrt[xpos*xpos+ypos*ypos]*ConvertToNm)<5000)&&(zpos*ConvertToNm<10000)&&(((Sqrt[xpos*xpos+ypos*ypos]*ConvertToNm)>100)||(zpos*ConvertToNm>1050))),
GetPotential[(Sqrt[xpos*xpos+ypos*ypos]*ConvertToNm),
zpos*ConvertToNm],0];PlusFullPotentialLg gives the potential of a pillar array plus the backgroundsurface
PillarArray=Table[x,{x,1,441},{y,0,1}];kk=1;
For[ii=-10,ii<=10,
For[jj=-10,jj<=10,
PillarArray[[kk, 1]]=ii;
PillarArray[[kk, 2]]=jj;kk++;jj++];
ii++];
PillarArray=PillarArray*500*ConvertToAu;
PlusFullPotentialLg[xfull_,yfull_,zfull_]:={
PointArray=PillarArray+Table[{xfull,yfull},{dummy,1,Dimensions[PillarArray][[1]]}];
CurrentValue=ConvertDegKToHartree*C4*ConvertToAu^(4)/mToNmConv^(4)*zfull^(4);
For[n=1,n<=Dimensions[PillarArray][[1]],CurrentValue=CurrentValue+
PillarPotential[PointArray[[n,1]],PointArray[[n,2]],zfull];n++];CurrentValue}[[1]]Calculation of the line potentials
For the reflection calculations, we cannot use an interpolating function, so a fitting routine
must be constructed to accurately mimic the potential. This is the most critical part of thefull calculation.
127

Potential for solid silicon and reduced density
potold[r_]=-ConvertDegKToHartree*C4*ConvertToAu^(4)/(mToNmConv)^(4)r^(4);
potoldsmall[r_]=-0.01*ConvertDegKToHartree*C4*ConvertToAu^(4)/(mToNmConv)^(4)r^(4);
Fitting the potential
The selection of line potentials and fitting routine. Calculating reflection probabilities foreach of these line potentials gives the average reflection model. Point values are weighting
factor, xposition, yposition. The average potential is made by creating a running tally inthe loop; the result is given below.
PointValues = {{1/8,0,0},{1/2,50,0},{1/2,50,50},{1/2,100,0},{1,100,50},{1/2,100,100},{1/2,150,0},{1,150,50},{1,150,100},{1/2,150,150},{1/2,200,0},{1,200,50},{1,200,100},{1,200,150},{1/2,200,200},{1/4,250,0},{1/2,250,50},{1/2,250,100},{1/2,250,150},{1/2,250,200},{1/8,250,250}};<< Statistics‘NonlinearFit‘
For[nnnn=1,nnnn<=21,
xvalue=PointValues[[nnnn,2]]*ConvertToAu;
yvalue=PointValues[[nnnn,3]]*ConvertToAu;
LinePot=
Table[PlusFullPotentialLg[xvalue,yvalue,z],{z,1100*ConvertToAu,8000*ConvertToAu,50*ConvertToAu}];
TrialFit=NonlinearFit[Log[LinePot],
theta0+theta1*x+theta2*(x + theta12)^2+theta3*(x+theta13)^3+
theta4*(x+theta14)^4+theta5*(x+theta15)^5+
theta6*(x+theta16)^(-1)+theta7*(x+theta17)^(-2),
x,{theta0,theta1,theta2,theta12,theta3,theta13,theta4,
theta14,theta5,theta15,theta6,theta16,theta7,theta17},
MaxIterations -> 8000];
nnnn++;]
averagepot[x_]=-Exp[-75.65-6865/(-1628+x)-0.1143x+0.0003988x^2-9.113*^-7 x^3+207.9(4.705+x)^(-2)];
Calculate reflection probability (C. Sanner)
reflprob[velocity_]:={k=m*velocity/(1000 v0);128

p[r_]=Sqrt[k^2-2m*pot[r*lengthscale]];psiwkb[r_]:=1/Sqrt[p[r]]*Exp[-I*NIntegrate[p[rr],{rr,rref,r}]];solution =NDSolve[{k^2/(2m)psi[r]+psi’’[r]/(2 m)pot[r*lengthscale] psi[r] == 0,
psi[rref+1]==psiwkb[rref+1],
psi[rref+3]==psiwkb[rref+3]},psi,{r,rref,75000},
MaxSteps->8000];
approx = Fit[Table[{r,Evaluate[psi[r]/. solution]},{r,45000,75000,1000}], {Exp[-I*k*r],Exp[I*k*r]},r];Abs[approx[[1,2,1]]/approx[[1,1,1]]]^2}[[1]]

129

130

Appendix E

Technical drawings
A custom flange for the science chamber provides optical access along all three chamber axes
and ports for (1) a linear actuator and (2) various electrical feedthroughs. MDC Vacuum
adapted part number MAF600-6-133T (409006) according to the following design.

ATMOSPHERE VIEW

C=5.97"2.2"

B/2=1.75"

0.45"

VACUUM VIEW

10-32 tap

1.5"
2.0"

131

132

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