365

12
Fermions on Atom Chips
Marcius H.T. Extavour, Lindsay J. LeBlanc, Jason McKeever, Alma B. Bardon, Seth Aubin,
Stefan Myrskog, Thorsten Schumm, and Joseph H. Thywissen

12.1
Introduction

Degenerate Fermi gases (DFGs) earned their place at the leading edge of degenerate quantum gas research with the ﬁrst demonstration of an atomic 40 K DFG in
1999 [1]. Since then, DFGs have been central to many important advances in theﬁeld, including molecular Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs), resonant superﬂuidity, fermion lattice physics, Mott insulator phase, and boson-fermion mixtures(see [2] and references therein).
Not long after the ﬁrst DFG was produced, efﬁcient loading of cold atoms into
atom chip microtraps enabled the ﬁrst demonstrations of Bose–Einstein condensation on an atom chip [3, 4]. In subsequent years, research efforts in DFGs and atom
chips progressed independently, but were combined with the 2006 demonstrationin Toronto of a DFG of 40 K on an atom chip [5].
In this chapter we provide the background to our work, including ideal fermion
statistics and the challenges particular to evaporative cooling in a chip trap. We
then describe our observations of Fermi degeneracy in 40 K, and of the Ramsauer–
Townsend effect. Finally, we discuss several works in progress: species selective
manipulation, interaction tuning.
This chapter begins with a review of statistical and thermodynamic propertiesof the ideal, non-interacting Fermi gas. We discuss our experimental approach to
producing a 40 K DFG and a 40 K-87 Rb DFG-BEC mixture, and our observation of
the Ramsauer–Townsend effect. We also include a discussion of how trap depth
constrains the possible wire geometries for chip traps. Finally, we discuss several
works in progress: species selective manipulation, and interaction tuning using a
Feshbach resonance.
Atom chips offer a wide array of techniques for trapping and manipulating
ultra-cold atoms using a single micro-fabricated device (see Chapter 3). These
techniques, discussed extensively in this book, include magnetostatic potentials(see Chapters 1 and 2), electrostatic potentials (see Chapter 13), dynamic radio-

Atom Chips. Edited by Jakob Reichel and Vladan Vuletić
Copyright © 2011 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
ISBN: 978-3-527-40755-2

366

12 Fermions on Atom Chips

frequency (RF) and microwave dressed potentials (see Chapters 7 and 9), andintegrated optical potentials (discussed here and in Chapter 3).
With these tools atom chips are well poised to advance active research in fermionic many-body systems. The “Z” trap conﬁguration often used for chip traps makes
an elongated potential that, when smooth enough, can produce one-dimensional
gases. One-dimensional fermion physics might include Luttinger liquids [6–8],
conﬁnement-induced molecule formation [9], and spin-charge separation [10].
RF-dressed double-well potentials on atom chips [11–14] have only recently been
applied to ultra-cold fermions [15]. This combination is an exciting step in the direction of fermion quantum atom optics, including interferometry [16], mesoscopic
quantum pumping circuit simulations [17], antibunching [18], and number statistics [19–21]. (See also Chapter 7.)
Spin-independent optical potentials can trap the spin mixtures necessary forstrong inter-particle interactions in fermions. Optical traps near the surface of an
atom chip [22, 23] provide opportunities to combine strongly interacting DFGs withnear-ﬁeld RF and microwave probes. We discuss a ﬁrst step in this direction in Section 12.7.
Finally, there are several attractive technical advantages in using atom chips forfermions. Large collision rates, made possible by the strong conﬁnement of microtraps relative to conventional, centimeter-scale traps, permit rapid sympathetic
evaporative cooling to quantum degeneracy. This obviates the need for minutescale vacuum lifetimes, multi-chamber vacuum systems, and Zeeman slowers.
Dramatically shorter experimental cycle times from atomic vapor to DFG also become possible, a point of practical value in day-to-day laboratory research.

12.2
Theory of Ideal Fermi Gases

Ultra-cold Fermi gases differ from ultra-cold Bose gases in their simplest theoretical description in two important ways: ﬁrst, there is no macroscopic occupation of
the single-particle ground state; second, spin-polarized Fermi gases are completely
noninteracting at ultra-cold temperatures [24, 25]. Ideal thermodynamic functions
are thus excellent descriptors of cold spin-polarized fermions, even as T ! 0. In
this section we review fermion thermodynamics, calculate trapped density distributions, and discuss observable signatures of Fermi degeneracy.
12.2.1
Thermodynamics

In the grand canonical ensemble description of an ideal Fermi gas, the mean occupation number of the single-particle energy state  ishn  i D1
1,
D 1 βZ e C1e β(µ) C 1(12.1)

12.2 Theory of Ideal Fermi Gases

1.0
mean occupation n∈

0.1
0.2

0.8
0.3

0.6
0.57

0.4
0.2
0.0

T TF

1

0.0

0.5

1.0
∈ EF

1.5

2.0

Figure 12.1 Universal curves of the mean Fermi–Dirac occupation of single particle states  vs.
/EF , shown at select values of T/ TF . The gray, dotted line indicates the T D 0 ﬁlled Fermi sea(see text).

where β  1/ kB T , kB is the Boltzmann constant, µ is the chemical potential of thegas, and Z  e β µ is the fugacity. The occupation number is bounded 0  n   1 asa result of the Pauli exclusion principle. Figure 12.1 shows the occupation number
as a function of single-particle energy for various temperatures. The T D 0 ideal
Fermi gas is characterized by a ﬁlled “Fermi sea”: all energy levels  for which  EF are fully occupied (n  D 1), while those for which  > EF are empty(n  D 0). The Fermi energy EF is equal to the chemical potential µ at T D 0. At
high temperatures the gas is described by a Boltzmann-like distribution [26].
Since a trapped gas is not in contact with number or energy reservoirs in experiments, we ignore ﬂuctuations in the total number and energy predicted by the
grand canonical ensemble description, taking N and E to be the average total number and total energy, respectively. These can be calculated using the discrete sums
NDX
hn  i

and

ED



X

hn  i ,(12.2)



where the sums run over all discrete states. In the limit of a large number of occupied states we can take the continuum limit, writing
Z1
ND

Z1
g()hn  id

D0

and

ED

g()hn  id ,(12.3)

D0

N 3 is the energy density of states for a harmonically trappedwhere g() D  2 /2(„ ω)
gas in three dimensions, and ωN  (ω x ω y ω z )1/3 is the geometric mean harmonic
trap frequency.
Integrals of this type can be evaluated using the Fermi–Dirac integrals [26]1f n (C ) Γ (C )

Z10

a n1 d a
D Li n (C ) (0  C < 1 , n > 0) , (12.4)
C 1 e a C 1

367

368

12 Fermions on Atom ChipsPjn
where Li n (C ) D 1
j D1 C / j is a polylogarithmic function and Γ (C ) is the gamma function. For n D 1, f 1 D ln (1 C C ). Using Eq. (12.4) we ﬁnd that the average
total number and energy are
N D (β„ ω)N 3 f 3 (Z )andE D 3kB T(β„ ω)N 3 f 4 (Z ) .

(12.5)The number and energy at zero temperature can be found using the zero temperature limit of the Fermi function,
lim f n (Z ) D

T !0(β µ) n.
Γ (n C 1)(12.6)As mentioned above, the Fermi energy EF is deﬁned as the zero temperature
limit of µ. For convenience, we will also refer to the “Fermi temperature” TF 
EF / kB , even though this temperature does not correspond to a phase transition, as
is the case for Tc of Bose gases. Re-writing Eq. (12.5) in terms of EF , we ﬁnd
1 EF 3
3
ND
and E D N EF .
(12.7)
6 „ω
N
4The chemical potential and fugacity at ﬁnite temperature can be found numerically by solving
6 f 3 (Z ) D (β EF )3 .

(12.8)

Using the Sommerfeld expansion of the polylogarithms, one obtains low- and hightemperature approximations to the chemical potential in a three-dimensional harmonic trap [28]:
8 

2 
kB T
π2
ˆ
ˆ EF 1  3
for kB T  EF , and
<
EF

 
µ
(12.9)
3ˆ:̂kB T ln 6 kEB T
for
k
T

E
.
B
F
F
Low Dimensionality Under certain conditions, a T D 0 Fermi gas in an anisotropic magnetic trap having ω ?  ω k may become effectively one dimensional. If theatom number and temperature are such that EF < „ω ? , the transverse degrees
of freedom are “frozen out” and fermions occupy only the longitudinal energy levels of the trap. The maximum number of fermions N1D that can populate such a
one-dimensional conﬁguration at T D 0 is equal to the aspect ratio of the trap:
N1D D ω ? /ω k . This scenario is especially relevant to atom chip micro-magnetic
traps, whose aspect ratios can be on the order of 102 to 104 [29].
12.2.2
Density Distribution

Apart from the choice of g(), many of the expressions derived in Section 12.2.1 resemble the textbook treatment of a uniform Fermi gas. In this section, we calculate

12.2 Theory of Ideal Fermi Gases

the non-uniform position and momentum distributions of trapped fermions. The
position distribution is observable in situ (with sufﬁcient spatial resolution), while
the momentum distribution is observable in time-of-ﬂight. We calculate these distributions by two different conceptual starting points: ﬁrst, using semi-classicalintegrals; and second, using the local density approximation.
Semi-Classical Approximation Taking the energies   (r, p ) D p 2 /2M C U(r) tobe those of a classical free particle at position r, where U(r) is the trapping potential
and M is the atomic mass, we can integrate the occupation function of Eq. (12.1)
over the momentum degrees of freedom to ﬁnd the semi-classical position distribution:Zi1d 3 p h 1 β(r,p )n(r) DZ e
C1,(12.10)3(2π„)

in which we have used the semi-classical phase-space volume of one quantum
state, (2π„)3 . Integration using Eq. (12.4) yields

βU(r),(12.11)n(r) D Λ 3
T f 3/2 Z epwhere Λ T D 2π„2 β/M is the thermal de Broglie wavelength. Unlike the corresponding expression for ideal bosons, Eq. (12.11) is valid at all temperatures. The
difference lies in the fact that we have ignored the occupation of the single-particle
ground state in taking the continuum limit (see Eq. (12.3)), evidenced by the vanishing density of states g() for  D 0. This does not pose a problem for fermions,for which the occupation of the ground state Z /(1 C Z )  1. For bosons, however,the corresponding expression Z /(1  Z ) diverges; the continuum limit completely
ignores the condensed fraction, whose contribution to the thermodynamics mustbe accounted for separately [26].
Local Density Approximation An alternate conceptual approach to the calculationof inhomogeneous distributions is the local density approximation. We start withthe expression for the density of a uniform Fermi gas n uniform D Λ 3
T f 3/2 (Z ) [26]and assume that local properties can be described by a local chemical potentialµ  U(r) and hence a local fugacity Z eβU(r) . We immediately recover Eq. (12.11),
and obtain its zero-temperature using Eq. (12.6)

3/2
2M
T D0 1E.
(12.12)n uniform !
F
6π 2 „2This implies that long-range properties of the Fermi gas may be ignored, unlike
in a BEC, which exhibits long-range phase coherence. In fact, the local density
approximation and the semi-classical approach generally yield identical results for
non-interacting fermions [24].
Specializing to the case of a three-dimensional harmonic oscillator potential
U(r) D 12 M(ω 2x x 2 C ω 2y y 2 C ω 2z z 2 ) we obtain
βM  2 2
2 2
2 2.
(12.13)
ω
f
Z
exp

x
C
ω
y
C
ω
z
n(r) D Λ 3
3/2
T
x
y
z
2

369

370

12 Fermions on Atom Chips

At zero temperature,3/2 

x2
8N
y2
z2
x2
y2
z2
1



Θ
1



2
2
2
2
2
2
3
X TF
YTF
ZTF
X TF
YTF
ZTF
π 2 RN TF(12.14)p
N 2 is the mean Thomas–Fermi radius of the cloud, X TF D
where RN TF D 2EF /M ωp
2EF /M ω 2x and so on are the Thomas–Fermi lengths along each trapping axis,and Θ (   ) is the Heaviside step function.
The momentum distribution can also be calculated using either the local density
or semi-classical approach. Experimentally, we observe the momentum distribution in a time-of-ﬂight density image, for which the distribution is obtained byrescaling all spatial coordinatesn(r) Dxi ! xiq
1 C ω 2i t 2
in Eq. (12.13) along the direction i 2 fx, y, zg, and renormalizing to conserve
particle number [25].
12.2.3
Crossover to Fermi Degeneracy

The T D 0 ﬁlled Fermi sea is quantum degenerate in the sense that it represents the absolute many-particle ground state of this non-interacting system. The
meaning of the term “degenerate” here should not be confused with its more conventional meaning for a gas of bosons, for which degeneracy implies multiple ormacroscopic occupation of the single-particle ground state (see Chapter 2). Multiple occupancy is forbidden for fermions, and so they are always “nondegenerate”
in the more conventional sense of the word.
What, then, is the nature of the transition to quantum degeneracy in fermions?
In contrast to the boson case, there is no phase transition into or out of the ﬁlled
Fermi sea. As is the case with bosons, however, high-temperature expansions forthermodynamic quantities fail around Z D 1. At lower temperatures the behavior differs dramatically from the predictions of classical, Boltzmann statistics. As
T ! 0, Z ! 1 for ideal bosons, whereas Z ! 1 for ideal fermions with thescaling Z  e β EF , as implied by Eq. (12.9). It is interesting to note the quantitative
relationship between fugacity and degeneracy for fermions:n 0 Λ 3T D f 3/2 (Z ) ,(12.15)where n 0  n(0) is the central density of the cloud. Thus, n 0 Λ 3T ' 0.77 when
Z D 1 for fermions, which occurs at T ' 0.57TF . By comparison, n 0 Λ 3T ' 2.61
when Z D 1 for bosons, at T D Tc .
The lack of a marked phase transition raises the question of what an experimental signature of Fermi degeneracy might be. Unlike a BEC, the non-interacting

12.3 The Atom Chip

DFG has an isotropic momentum distribution in time-of-ﬂight, even when released
from an anisotropic trap [28]. Thus, the aspect ratio of the cold cloud cannot be asignature of degeneracy. Instead, observations of Fermi degeneracy rely on two signatures: the average energy per particle, and the shape of the time-of-ﬂight density
distribution.
Using Eq. (12.5) we may write the average energy per particle asE
f 4 (Z )D 3kB T.
N
f 3 (Z )(12.16)

The ﬁnite zero-temperature limit of Eq. (12.16) is 3EF /4, corresponding to Fermi
pressure [26, 27]. By comparison, the corresponding expression for the Boltzmann
gas is E/N D 3kB T , which tends toward zero at zero temperature.
The second signature of Fermi degeneracy is evident when the observed fermion
time-of-ﬂight distribution is compared to the predictions of the Boltzmann andFermi–Dirac models. The latter is obtained by integration of Eq. (12.13) along theimaging line of sight. 28)
Taking z as the imaging direction, we ﬁnd
#!
"
N
y2
x2
n(x,
Q
y, t) Df 2 Z exp  2  2, (12.17)
2π r x (t)r y (t) f 3 (Z )2r x (t) 2r y (t)2where r i2 (t) D (ω 2
i C t )/β M is the cloud size in the i 2 fx, y, zg direction after atime t of free expansion. By comparison, the spatial distribution for an expanding
cloud of classical particles is
"
#
x2
y2
N
exp  2  2,(12.18)nQ cl (x, y, t) D
2π r x (t)r y (t)2r x (t) 2r y (t)using the same deﬁnitions for r i (t). Both of these signatures have been observed,
as discussed further in Section 12.5.5.

12.3
The Atom Chip

The experiments described in this chapter were carried out at the University ofToronto with an atom chip designed and fabricated in the atom chip group at theLaboratoire Charles Fabry de l’Institut d’Optique [30, 31]. This section details the
conductor layout, material composition, and supporting electrical and mechanicalinfrastructure for the chip. See Chapter 3 for a more thorough review of atom chip
fabrication.

28) When integrating Fermi functions over Gaussian degrees of freedom, it is useful to note that
R1
p
x 2
) D π f nC1/2 (C ).
1 dx f n (C e

371

372

12 Fermions on Atom Chips

12.3.1
Chip Construction and Wire Pattern

The atom chip consists of gold wires electroplated onto a cleaved 16 mm28 mm
600 µm silicon substrate. The chip was patterned using photolithography, with themetal wires deposited by evaporation and electroplating. A 20-nm titanium adhesion layer and 200-nm gold seed layer were evaporated onto the SiO2 surface oxide,
followed by solution electroplating of gold to a ﬁnal wire height of 6 µm. The ﬁnal
result is a mostly bare silicon substrate hosting eight gold electrical contact pads
connecting ﬁve separate conductors on its surface [30]. The wires can sustain an
operating DC current of 5 A, though we never exceed 2 A in the central Z-wire.
We use two of the ﬁve chip wires in the work presented here, highlighted indark gray in Figure 12.2a. The central Z-wire forms the basis of our static micromagnetic trap. An adjacent, thinner wire is used as a near-ﬁeld antenna for delivering RF and microwave ﬁelds to the trapped atoms.
12.3.2
Electrical and Mechanical Connections

The chip is fastened to a copper support “stack” without glue or screws, but by mechanical pressure only. Custom-made MACOR ceramic C-clamps press ﬂattened
strips of beryllium-copper foil onto the gold contact pads for DC and RF electrical connections, while at the same time pressing the chip onto the stack (see

3 mm

Ioffe
bias
AC
DC

(a)

copper
50

z

190

DC

10
AC
28 mm

y
x

80

(b)
Figure 12.2 Atom chip conductor pattern
and mounting schematic diagram. (a) Central
atom chip conductor pattern, highlighting theZ-wire (“DC”) and adjacent, thinner antenna
wire (“AC”) in dark gray. Thick arrows indicate
the directions of external, uniform magnetic
ﬁelds. (b) Close-up view of dashed region in

(c)

16 mm

(a), showing wire widths, center-to-center separation, and location of the trapped atomic
cloud (black ellipsoid). All dimensions are in
micrometers. (c) The atom chip is pressed
onto a ﬂy-cut copper block using ceramic MACOR C-clamps (white). Electrical connections
are not shown.

12.4 Loading the Microtrap

Figure 12.2c). The beryllium-copper foil strips are in turn connected to ceramicinsulated copper wires which deliver current from the air side into the UHV chamber and onto the chip. The entire assembly is mounted vertically in the vacuum
chamber with the atom chip at the bottom, face down [32, 33]. The stack also
acts as a heat-sink for the atom chip, and was machined from oxygen-free highconductivity (OFHC) copper.
12.3.3The Z-Wire Magnetic Trap

We use an anisotropic, Ioffe–Pritchard-type Z-wire microtrap [34] throughout (seealso Chapters 1 and 2). The external DC bias ﬁelds used for magnetic conﬁnement
are supplied by three pairs of magnetic ﬁeld coils mounted outside of the vacuum
chamber. With this setup we have achieved atom–surface distances between 80 µm
and 300 µm, harmonic oscillation frequencies ω x,z 2π 200 Hz to 2π 2.5 kHz,ω y 2π  32 to 50 Hz, and trap depths as large as kB  1.4 mK.
The effects of wire surface roughness on the magnetic potential have been studied extensively for atom chips of this type [30, 35, 36]. Though sub-micrometerscale wire rugosity is not a problem at our 190-µm working distance, we do observe three large and unexpected minima in the longitudinal magnetic potential.
Though these “defects” prevent us from reaching the largest trap anisotropies available in Z-traps, we use them to our advantage during evaporative cooling. Magnetic
gradients applied along y tilt the longitudinal potential so that atoms preferentially ﬁll the largest and deepest of these local potential minima. In this local trap,
the longitudinal oscillation frequency is two to three times larger than it would
be in the absence of the defect. The increased mean oscillation frequency ωN (seeSection 12.2.1) and accompanying gains in collision rate allow us to evaporate toquantum degeneracy more rapidly and efﬁciently than would otherwise be possible.

12.4
Loading the Microtrap

Our experimental approach to creating a 40 K DFG on an atom chip is motivated in large part by the scarcity of 40 K, whose natural isotopic abundance is only
0.012 %. Even when using a potassium dispenser with 40 K enriched to 5 %, we ﬁndthat large MOT beams are essential to capture enough 40 K in a background UHVpressure compatible with magnetic trapping. Rather than using a reﬂected surface
MOT [37], which would require a mirror-coated chip of length 6 cm to accommodate our 4-cm-diameter MOT beams, we ﬁrst load a large conventional MOT
several centimeters beneath the atom chip, then magnetically trap and transport
the atoms to the chip. Once loaded into the Z-trap, we sympathetically cool 40 K
to quantum degeneracy with a 87 Rb reservoir to minimize 40 K atom number loss.
This approach also obviates the need for a mirror-coated atom chip.

373

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12 Fermions on Atom Chips

In this section and the next, we review our laser cooling, magnetic trapping andtransport, chip loading, and evaporative cooling steps, noting that further detailis available in [5, 15, 32]. We also add to our previous work with a discussion of
the roles of trap depth and trap volume in micro-trap experiments, with particularemphasis on chip loading in our setup.
12.4.1
Laser Cooling and Magnetic Transport to the Chip

Both 40 K and 87 Rb are initially trapped and cooled in a dual-species MOT formedby six counter-propagating 4-cm-diameter beams centered 5 cm below the atom
chip [15, 32]. We use a single-chamber vacuum system, and load the MOT directlyfrom atomic vapor created using a combination of dispensers and light-induced
atom desorption (LIAD). During each MOT loading cycle, commercial high-power
405-nm LEDs irradiate our 75 mm75 mm160 mm Pyrex vacuum cell for several
seconds to generate the atomic vapor. We use commercial Rb and home-made K
dispensers to replenish the 40 K and 87 Rb coatings on the interior walls of the UHVchamber as needed – typically every few days or weeks [15]. By this method weachieve 40 K and 87 Rb atom numbers of roughly 6  106 and 6  108 in the MOT.
After optical molasses cooling of 87 Rb, both 87 Rb and 40 K are optically pumped
into the stretched internal magnetic hyperﬁne states, jF D 2, m F D 2i andjF D 9/2, m F D 9/2i, respectively. With all lasers extinguished, the mixture
is magnetically trapped in a quadrupole magnetic trap and transported vertically to the surface of the atom chip using external coils. From there atoms aresmoothly transferred from the quadrupole magnetic trap into the Z-trap located 190 µm from the chip surface, which has harmonic 40 K oscillation frequencies ω x,z D 2π  823 ˙ 7 Hz and ω y D 2π  46 ˙ 1 Hz, and a trap depth ofkB  1.05 mK.
12.4.2
Loading Bosons and Fermions onto the Atom Chip

Along with the advantages of high compression and fast collision rate characteristic of atom chip microtraps comes a disadvantage: small trap volume. The volume
occupied by a trapped gas depends on its temperature, unlike in the uniform “box”
potential we are accustomed to from thermodynamics. The trap volume is not typically discussed when creating “macroscopic” magnetic traps with large coils, since
their trap depths can be orders of magnitude larger than is required to conﬁnelaser-cooled atoms. For microtraps, however, the trap volume may limit the number of atoms that can “ﬁt” into the trap, in a way that we will quantify in the following subsections. Our discussion points out a clear route to larger atom number,when it would be desirable.
An atom is trapped when its energy is less than the trap depth Utd . A goodmodel of a thermalized gas in a trap-depth-limited trap is a truncated Boltzmann
distribution [38], where truncation occurs at η times the temperature, that is12.4 Loading the Microtrap

Utd D η kB T . For the collision rates typical of atom chip traps, free evaporation
resulting from the limited trap depth occurs when η . 3; by contrast, efﬁcientevaporation occurs when η & 5.
The laser cooling discussed in Section 12.4.1 allows atoms to be delivered to thechip at temperatures less than Utd . However, our loading efﬁciency is typically 10 %or less, while phase-space density is roughly preserved: we load roughly 2107 87 Rb
atoms and 2105 40 K into the Z-trap. We will attempt to explain the factors limiting
this efﬁciency in the following subsections.
The initial loaded number of fermions places an upper bound on the number
of ultra-cold fermions we can produce. Furthermore, though we load many morebosons than fermions, bosons are continually lost during the evaporative coolingprocess, as described in Section 12.5.1. The limited amount of “refrigerant” eventually limits the number of fermions that can be cooled, or their ﬁnal temperature.
It is, therefore, important to understand our loading process and ways in which it
can be improved.
12.4.3
Effective Trap Volume

Our discussion here concerns the number, temperature, and density of a gas at thestart of evaporative cooling, having already been loaded into the microtrap. We willassume an initial phase-space density 0 , which is typically . 105 for laser-cooled
atoms. At the densities typical of this point in the experimental cycle, the density
distribution of the gas is well approximated as that of an ideal non-degenerate gas.
From Eq. (12.11), the density distribution of an ideal Fermi gas in three dimenβU(r)), where U(0)  0. The corresponding expression
sions is n(r) D Λ 3
T f 3/2 (Z efor ideal bosons is obtained by using the thermodynamic Bose–Einstein function
g 3/2 (   ) in place of f 3/2 (   ) in this expression. In either case, at low fugacity
Z 1

βU(r)
n(r) ! Λ 3.
T Ze

(12.19)Integrating both sides of the equation, we recover the total atom numberZ
N D n 0 eβU(r) d r ,(12.20)where the volume of integration is deﬁned by U < Utd , and n 0 D n(0).
In analogy with a uniform gas, we deﬁne the effective volume
Z
Veff  eβU(r) d r ,(12.21)such that n 0 D N/Veff [38]. For a simple three-dimensional box of side L, Veff D
V D L3 .
In the limit of η  1, we can integrate the full Boltzmann distribution to ﬁnd
the trap volume in several typical cases. For a three-dimensional simple harmonic

375

376

12 Fermions on Atom Chips

oscillator potential,

SHO
D
Veff

2π
Mω
N2

 32

3

(kB T ) 2 ,(12.22)where ωN is the geometric mean oscillation frequency. For the three-dimensional
quadrupole (linear) trap,
QT
Veff D 8π FN 3 (kB T )3 ,(12.23)where U  jF  rj and FN is the geometric mean gradient. Finally, a hybrid twodimensional quadrupole and one-dimensional box model gives
2QB

Veff

D 2πL FN 2 (kB T )2 .

(12.24)In all of the above cases, the effective volume has a power-law dependence Veff D
Cδ T δ .
12.4.4
A Full Tank of Atoms: Maximum Trapped Atom Number

Using the effective volume, we can now relate the trapped atom number to the initial phase-space density 0 , which is equivalent to the degeneracy parameter n 0 Λ 3T
for Z  1:
N D 0 Λ 3
T Veff (T ) .

(12.25)Since kB T D Utd /η by deﬁnition, we can write out the explicit temperature dependence in Eq. (12.25) to ﬁndNmax D 0

M
2π„2

 32


Cδ

Utd
η

 δC 32,(12.26)

for a trap with a δ power law effective volume.
This equation shows us why the loaded atom number is typically smaller in
microtraps than macrotraps. First, the trap depth Utd is typically smaller, which
9/2
reduces atom number with a power law as fast as Utd for a three-dimensional
quadrupole. Second, even for comparable trap depths, the stronger trapping
strength of a microtrap reduces C δ : C3 / ωN 3 in the case of a three-dimensional
harmonic oscillator, for instance.
Equation (12.26) also demonstrates the importance of large currents in trapping wires. Consider the case in which a three-dimensional harmonic microtrap
is formed above a single long wire, for which ω ? / B0? /I where B0? is theperpendicular bias ﬁeld and I is the wire current. Since the trap depth increases
linearly with B0? , Eq. (12.26) suggests that the maximum atom number at a ﬁxed
the distance fromη and phase-space density is Nmax / I 2 B0? /ω z . Assuming thatp
the trapped atoms to the chip surface is ﬁxed, and that ω z / I , Nmax / I 5/2 .
Thus, we see that larger wire currents allow an increase in the number of trapped
atoms.

12.5 Rapid Sympathetic Cooling of a K-Rb Mixture

12.4.5
Effect of Geometry on Loaded Atom Number

We now evaluate the trap volume and the expected maximum atom number loaded
into several well-studied chip traps. We will start with the earliest proposed traps,
described in [39] by Libbrecht, and assume they are loaded with 87 Rb in the j2, 2i
state. For a single-loop quadrupole trap of radius 10 µm and using a 1-A current,
the gradient is 5.4105 G/cm and the trap depth kB 21 mK. Assuming the trap canbe loaded with η 4 (corresponding to an initial temperature of  5 mK), the trap
volume would be Veff  310 µm3 . At an initial phase-space density of 106 , 2  104
atoms could be loaded into the trap. However, a quadrupole trap has a magnetic
ﬁeld zero at its center, and is thus unsuitable for trapping ultra-cold atoms.
The Ioffe “(c)” conﬁguration of [39] consists of concentric half-loops with a 10 µminimum diameter. Using a 1-A current, the trap has a depth of kB  1.3 mK and acurvature that gives ω/2πN
 94 kHz. Although the trap is impressively strong, its
effective volume is only 0.4 µm3 ; less than one atom would be trapped at a phasespace density of 106 . For this reason, larger trap volumes than those of Libbrecht’s
pioneering geometries were required to achieve quantum degeneracy in an atom
chip microtrap.
Finally, let us consider the Reichel Z-trap [37] (see also Chapter 2). The potential
at the center of the trap is harmonic, with a typical geometric mean frequency of
ω/2πN 300 Hz in our setup. The trap depth is limited by the transverse appliedﬁeld, for which a typical value of 20 G gives Utd  kB  1.3 mK. Assuming thetrap is loaded at η D 4, we ﬁnd that the effective volume is 1.3  107 µm3 , and the
maximum trapped atom number 1.2107 at an initial phase-space density of 106 .
Although approximate, our calculation shows that the Z-trap geometry is capable ofloading six to seven orders of magnitude more atoms than the Libbrecht geometry
for the same initial phase-space density.
Furthermore, the calculation suggests that the loaded atom number in our experiment is limited by trap depth and volume. For our geometric mean ﬁeld curvatureof 3  104 G/cm2 and initial temperature of 300 µK, the effective trap volume is3  107 µm3 . One would expect 3  107 87 Rb atoms at 0  106 , and 3  105
40
K atoms at 0  4  108 . This is consistent with our observations to within anorder-of-magnitude (2  107 for 87 Rb and 2  105 for 40 K), and demonstrates that
we are close to, if not at, the maximum possible number of loaded atoms, given thephase-space density and temperature after magnetic transport to the chip.

12.5
Rapid Sympathetic Cooling of a K-Rb Mixture

In this section we describe the sympathetic evaporative cooling of 40 K with 87 Rb
in a microtrap, by which we produce a pure 40 K DFG or a dually degenerate BEC–
DFG mixture. Particular emphasis is placed on the temperature dependence of the
K-Rb scattering length, and its effect on K-Rb rethermalization and evaporation377

12 Fermions on Atom Chips

efﬁciency. The section concludes with a discussion of experimental signatures ofquantum degeneracy in DFGs.
12.5.1Forced Sympathetic RF Evaporation

We reach dual quantum degeneracy in 40 K and 87 Rb via sympathetic RF evaporative
cooling of 87 Rb in a Z-trap having B0 ' 2.6 G, 40 K harmonic oscillation frequencies
ω x,z D 2π823˙7 Hz and ω y D 2π46˙1 Hz, and a trap depth of kB 1.05 mK [5,40–43]. In our case, 40 K is cooled indirectly by thermalizing elastic collisions with87
Rb. By sweeping the RF evaporation frequency from 28.6 to 3.65 MHz in as little
as 6 s, we reach T/ TF ' 0.1  0.2 with F ' kB  1.1 µK and as many as 4  104
40
K atoms, faster than has been possible in conventional magnetic traps [5, 15]. 29)
This rapid evaporation to degeneracy is made possible by the strong atom chip
conﬁnement.
As is evident in Figure 12.3, the 40 K is cooled to quantum degeneracy (Z1)
with only a ﬁve-fold loss in atom number, while the 87 Rb is evaporated with logslope efﬁciency @[log(0 )]/@[log(N )] D 2.9 ˙ 0.4, where 0 is the peak phase-spacedensity. When evaporating 87 Rb alone to BEC, the evaporation efﬁciency can be as
high as 4.0 ˙ 0.1; sacriﬁcing some evaporation efﬁciency, a more rapid evaporation
can produce a BEC in just 2 s. By contrast, for 40 K-87 Rb mixtures, we observe thatRF sweep times faster than 6 s are not successful in achieving dual degeneracy. The
reason is that 87 Rb and 40 K rethermalize more slowly than 87 Rb alone, particularly

3

10

3

10

10

0

10

–3

10

−6

10

0

−3

10

−6

10

−9

−9

10

Rb ground state occupation

K fugacity

87

40

378

10
4

10

5

10

6

10

7

10

atom number

Figure 12.3 Sympathetic cooling to dual 40 K87
Rb quantum degeneracy. Spin-polarized
fermions without a bosonic bath cannot be
successfully evaporatively cooled (diamond).
However, if bosonic 87 Rb (squares) is evaporatively cooled, the fermionic 40 K is sympathetically cooled (circles) by thermalizing
elastic collisions with 87 Rb. The vertical axes

indicate the evolution of phase-space density en route to dual quantum degeneracy(Z  1) during evaporation: 40 K fugacity Z
on the left, and 87 Rb ground-state occupationon the right. A typical run-to-run spread in
atom number is indicated on the right-mostpoint; all vertical error bars are smaller thanthe marker size.

29) A 6 Li DFG has been produced in an all-optical setup in as little as 3.5 s [44].

12.5 Rapid Sympathetic Cooling of a K-Rb Mixture

during the initial high-temperature stages of evaporation. Direct measurements of
the 40 K and 87 Rb temperatures indicate that 40 K thermalization lags that of 87 Rb
despite an experimentally optimized RF frequency sweep that is slower at higher
temperatures and accelerates at lower temperatures [5].
12.5.2
K-Rb Cross-Thermalization

We have studied the 40 K-87 Rb inter-species scattering cross-section σ KRb by measuring cross-thermalization rates at temperatures between 10 and 200 µK [5]. We
compare the results, shown in Figure 12.4, to the σ KRb -vs.-temperature behavior
predicted by two scattering models. The simpler model, assuming only s-wave
contact-interaction scattering, predicts σ KRb D 4π a 2 /(1 C a 2 k 2 ) > σ RbRb throughout the stated temperature range, where a D a KRb is the 40 K-87 Rb s-wave scattering
length, and k the relative wavevector in the center-of-mass frame. The second moredetailed model is based on an effective-range atom–atom scattering theory which
includes the next-order correction to the s-wave scattering phase shift [45, 46] andis in good agreement with our measurements.
We attribute the observed reduction in scattering cross-section to the onset of theRamsauer–Townsend effect, in which the s-wave scattering phase and cross-section
approach zero for a particular value of relative energies between particles [5, 47].

102

101

Temperature (µK)

Cross-section (nm2)

103

30
25

0

0.5

1.0

Hold Time (s)

100

101
Temperature (µK)

Figure 12.4 K-Rb cross-species thermalization. Measurements of σ KRb (diamonds) arecompared with the s-wave-only (dashed) andeffective-range (solid) scattering models (seetext). For reference, the s-wave σ RbRb is also shown (dotted). Inset: We measure thecross-thermalization by abruptly reducing thetemperature of 87 Rb and watching the temperature of 40 K relax with time. The data shown
has an asymptotic 40 K temperature of 27 µK.

102

The highest temperature point (open diamond) did not completely thermalize and lies
off of the effective range prediction. A moresophisticated analysis may be required for thispoint, owing to severe trap anharmonicity at
this high temperature. The vertical error bars
are statistical (one standard deviation); thehorizontal error bars show the spread in initial
and ﬁnal 40 K temperature during rethermalization.

379

380

12 Fermions on Atom Chips

Despite the high-temperature reduction in cross-section, however, 40 K and 87 Rb
are relatively good sympathetic cooling partners. By comparison, 6 Li-87 Rb sympathetic cooling measurements [48, 49] suggest a zero-temperature cross-section approximately 100 times smaller than σ KRb ; in other words, a maximum 6 Li-87 Rb
cross-section roughly equal to the lowest 40 K-87 Rb value we measure.
12.5.3
Density-Dependent Loss

The large and negative inter-species scattering length a KRb results in a strong 40 K87
Rb attractive interaction. At low temperatures and high atomic densities, thisinteraction creates an additional mean-ﬁeld conﬁnement that can lead to massive
and sudden losses during sympathetic cooling [40, 41, 43]. These studies of densitydependent interaction-driven losses point to boson-boson-fermion 30) 3-body decay
as the underlying mechanism for the collapse of the mixture. This effect ultimately
limits the atom numbers in 40 K-87 Rb mixtures.
These effects manifest themselves in our experiment as 40 K and 87 Rb number
losses near the end of evaporation. While we are able to produce BECs of up to
3  105 atoms when we work with 87 Rb alone, the simultaneous 87 Rb and 40 K atom
numbers are restricted to at most 105 and 4  104 respectively (see Figure 12.3).
12.5.4
Required Temperature

The reduction in the K-Rb elastic scattering cross-section discussed in
Section 12.5.3 may lead the reader to wonder why we started evaporative cooling at such a high temperature. The reason is that the 87 Rb-87 Rb elastic collision
rate required for efﬁcient evaporative cooling within our magnetic trap lifetime
imposes a lower bound on the initial temperature. In this section we will shift our
focus to single-species collision rates in order to understand this constraint.
Evaporative cooling requires a trap lifetime that is some multiple (typically 103 )1of γcoll, where γcoll D n 0 σ vr is the collision rate at the center of thep
trap; n 0 is thecentral density, σ is the elastic scattering cross-section, and vr D 8kB T/πM isthe relative velocity of collision partners [50].
Since 0  n 0 Λ 3T at the start of evaporation (see Section 12.4.4), we can express
the central density in terms of the phase-space density:σ0 M(kB T )2 ,(12.27)π 2 „3
which is independent of atom number.
This relation can be used to give a lower bound on temperature in a broad range
minof traps. Deﬁning γcoll
as the minimum scattering rate,
γcoll D(kB T )2

min
γcoll

π 2 „3.
M σ030) Fermion-fermion-boson 3-body decay is precluded by the Pauli exclusion principle.

(12.28)

12.5 Rapid Sympathetic Cooling of a K-Rb Mixture

In the case of 87 Rb, approximating σ by its low temperature limit 8π a 2s , wherea s is the s-wave scattering length, we ﬁnd that the minimum temperature at the
beginning of evaporative cooling isT0min D 300 µK 

106
0

1/2

min
γcoll
150 s1!1/2,(12.29)for any loaded atom number or trap geometry. In our case, the Rb-Rb elastic collision rate at the start of RF evaporation is roughly 150 s1 , and the phase-spacedensity 106 or slightly higher. Equation (12.29) predicts T0min D 300 µK, which
exactly coincides with the temperature we measure at the start of evaporation.
(The excellent agreement should be taken with a grain of salt, since the model is only approximate.) Can we gain anything by decompressing or compressing the trap? Our trap lifetime τ t
5 s is only 750 times larger than the colli1
D 1/150 ' 6.7 ms – less than optimal, assuming that we requiresion time γcoll
1
τ t & 1000γcoll
for efﬁcient evaporation. Any adiabatic decompression would demin
and result in signiﬁcant loss of evaporation
crease our collision rate below γcoll
efﬁciency. If the trap lifetime were longer, decompression would reduce the tem1
perature without sacriﬁcing evaporation efﬁciency; τ t > 1000γcoll
would be much
1easier to satisfy even as γcoll decreased in the decompression. Compressing the trap
near the end of evaporation would increase in K-Rb 3-body loss, which would exacerbate the losses we already observe due to attractive 40 K-87 Rb interactions near
the end of evaporation (see Section 12.5.3). Compressing near the beginning of
evaporation should not induce much loss since densities are relatively small at thatpoint, but compression causes dramatic loss in our case due to the limited trap
depth. For these reasons, we have little choice but to start our evaporation in theregime where the Ramsauer–Townsend effect is signiﬁcant.
12.5.5Experimental Signatures of Fermi Degeneracy

Following the discussion in Section 12.2.3, we assess the degree of Fermi degeneracy in 40 K by ﬁtting ideal Boltzmann and Fermi gas theory to time-of-ﬂight absorption data. Unlike the Boltzmann gas, whose spatial width tends toward zero
as T ! 0, Pauli exclusion results in a ﬁnite-sized Fermi gas with a ﬁnite average momentum, even at T D 0 [27]. This Fermi pressure (see Section 12.2.3) isevident in Figure 12.5a, in which the in-trap cloud width deviates from the Boltzmann prediction for T/ TF . 0.5. Absorption images taken at T/ TF D 0.95 and0.35 are overlayed with a circle indicating EF in Figure 12.5b,c, demonstrating thatthe average momentum of the Fermi gas plateaus at low temperature.
In addition to the expansion energy, a second measure of the degree of Fermi
degeneracy is the deviation of the time-of-ﬂight spatial proﬁle from the Gaussianenvelope predicted by Boltzmann statistics. The Gaussian ﬁt is excellent at hightemperatures, but fails at low temperatures [1]. Figure 12.5d shows the residuals ofa Gaussian ﬁt using Eq. (12.18) to a gas at T/ TF D 0.1, compared to those of a ﬁt

381

12 Fermions on Atom Chips

2
1.5
Expansion energy

382

1

(b)

EF

(c)

200 µm

0.5

(a)

0

(d)
0

0.5

1

1.5

2

Temperature

0
200 400
Radial distance (µm)

Figure 12.5 (a) The apparent in situ fermion
temperature measured by Gaussian ﬁts to
40 K time-of-ﬂight absorption data, plotted versus temperature of both thermal (diamonds)
and Bose-condensed (circles) 87 Rb. The data follows a curve derived from Gaussian ﬁts
to artiﬁcial, perfect Fermi distributions (solidline), deviating from the corresponding Boltzmann prediction (dashed) at temperatures
below T/ TF  0.5. Quantum degeneracyof 87 Rb has little effect on the 40 K expansion

energy in this data (circles vs. diamonds).
(b, c) Absorption images for T/ TF D 0.95
and 0.35 respectively, overlayed with black circles of radius RF rescaled after time-of-ﬂight(see Section 12.2.2). (d) Residuals from radial ﬁts of Gaussian (dots) and Fermi–Dirac(squares) envelope functions to absorption
data at T/ TF D 0.1. The good Fermi–Dirac ﬁt
and poor Gaussian ﬁt are evidence of a Fermi
degenerate sample.

using Eq. (12.17), which assumes Fermi–Dirac statistics. Though the Gaussian andFermi–Dirac proﬁles are very similar, careful analysis shows that the Fermi–Diracfunction is a better ﬁt, with a reduced χ 2 three times lower than the Gaussian ﬁt.

12.6
Species-Selective RF Manipulation

For atoms conﬁned to a magnetic trap, an applied ﬁeld oscillating at radio frequencies (RF) can resonantly couple adjacent m F states. The atomic system in the
combined static and time-varying magnetic ﬁelds can be described by a Hamiltonian with new, uncoupled eigenstates – the so-called “adiabatic” or “RF-dressed”
states [51]. The spatial dependence of these states, and thus the spatial characterof the trapping potential, can be manipulated by varying the RF amplitude BRF
and frequency ω RF (see Chapter 7 for a thorough review of RF-dressed potentials).
In this section we discuss two useful regimes for manipulating ultra-cold boson–
fermion mixtures on atom chips using these effects.
The ﬁrst type of RF manipulation is species-selective evaporative cooling. As implied in Section 12.5, RF manipulation can drive 87 Rb spin-ﬂip transitions to untrapped spin states at the edge of the 87 Rb dressed potential without inducing loss
in 40 K, as a consequence of the explicit m F and g F dependence of the magnetic
trapping potentials. In the second type of RF manipulation, BRF is large enoughthat Landau–Zener tunneling between dressed states is suppressed and the usual
adiabatic condition is satisﬁed [50]. Atoms adiabatically follow the RF-dressed mag-12.6 Species-Selective RF Manipulation

netic eigenstates and remain trapped in a double-well potential [52–54]. This effectwas ﬁrst demonstrated on both thermal [51, 55] and quantum degenerate Bose
gases [11, 56] and is now a well-established method for dynamically “splitting” anultra-cold Bose gas [11–14, 57]. We have added to this work by demonstrating thesimultaneous creation of a 87 Rb double well and a 40 K single well [15]. This result
demonstrates that the adiabatic potentials experienced by each species can be dramatically different in an applied RF ﬁeld, owing to the different values of g F for87
Rb and 40 K.
12.6.1
Sympathetic RF Evaporation

In this section we consider a simple sympathetic cooling scenario, typical in our
experiments; an RF “knife” is used to evaporatively cool 87 Rb, which then acts as arefrigerant for the 40 K. 31) Ideally, this scheme would causes no loss of 40 K atoms;
here we explore to what extent this is true.
A critical parameter in evaporative cooling is η D Utd / kB T (see Section 12.4.2).
The larger the choice of η, the fewer atoms are removed from the trap, since asmaller fraction of the kinetic energy distribution lies above Utd [50]. In sympathetic cooling of 40 K by 87 Rb, we would ideally like the RF ﬁeld to have no effect on the40
K trap depth. However, we shall see that for our scheme the RF knife does limit
the trap depth for 40 K, though the effect is small. This effect may be quantiﬁed byevaluating η for 40 K in our cooling scheme.
We begin by considering atoms in spin states jF, m F i in a static (“DC”) magnetic trap, whose potential is U(r) D m F g F µ B BDC (r). The minimum magnetic ﬁeld
amplitude is B0  BDC (0) using the notation BDC (r)  jB DC (r)j. We apply a weak,sinusoidally time-varying magnetic ﬁeld of amplitude BRF and frequency ω RF . If
„ω RF > g F µ B B0 , then atoms in state m F at positions r 1 for whichg F µ B BDC (r 1 ) D „ω RF(12.30)can undergo spin-ﬂips to adjacent m F states, including untrapped ones. This imposes an effective trap depth Utd D g F m F µ B (BDC (r 1 )  B0 ) on these atoms, since
any atom with energy above Utd is ejected from the trap. Therefore, we can write
Utd  η kB T D m F („ω RF  g F µ B B0 )(12.31)for a gas of atoms in state jF, m F i in thermal equilibrium at temperature T.
For two species in thermal equilibrium in the same magnetic trap, we can write
down simultaneous equations like (12.31) for both species. From these, we infer
the relationship
!
(K)
h
i
mF
(K)
(Rb)
(K) µ B B 0gη.
(12.32)
C
m

g
ηK D
Rb
F
F
F
(Rb)
kB T
m
F

31) Microwave magnetic ﬁelds at 6.8 GHz may also be used to species-selectively evaporate 87 Rb via
hyperﬁne transitions [48].

383

12 Fermions on Atom Chips

between the two η parameters in the case of 40 K and 87 Rb, using the fact that ω RF
and B0 are common to both species. This convenient form highlights the role ofm F and g F in the RF evaporation of a mixture of atomic species.
Moving now to a more speciﬁc case, we note that typical sympathetic coolingramps are done with 87 Rb in the j2, 2i state, and the 40 K in j9/2, 9/2i, since this mixture is stable with respect to many inelastic collisions [40]. Equation (12.32) yields
ηK D

95 µ B B0
η Rb C,
4
4 kB T(12.33)from which we immediately conclude that η K > 9η Rb /4 for all values of temperature. Having η K > η Rb ensures that 87 Rb can be evaporated without inducing
signiﬁcant loss in the 40 K population, as required for efﬁcient sympathetic evaporative cooling.
For a typical experimental value of η Rb  8, which is roughly constant throughout the evaporation, Figure 12.6 demonstrates that η K rises sharply for all trap(K)pable m F states as sympathetic evaporation proceeds and the 40 K temperature
decreases. 40 K spin-ﬂip losses are most likely to occur when η K is smallest. In
our experiments, this occurs at the beginning of evaporation, when B0 D 5.7 G,
T 300 µK [5, 15], and η K D 8.1.
We can also use Eq. (12.33) to compare η K and η Rb in the scenario in which
all the 87 Rb is evaporated away to leave a pure 40 K DFG. Taking η Rb ! 0 andworking at a typical pure-DFG temperature T D 220 nK [5], we ﬁnd η K > 220
for all trappable 40 K sublevels. This conﬁrms that 87 Rb can be fully and selectively
ejected from the trap without causing any signiﬁcant 40 K loss.
Finally, we note that it is possible in principle to evaporate 40 K without in(Rb)ducing 87 Rb loss. For RF frequencies „ω RF  g F µ B B0 , only 40 K atoms are(K)ejected from the trap, at positions r 2 such that „ω RF D g F µ B B(r 2 ). Following
40
the derivation of Eq. (12.31), we can express the K trap depth in this scenario

4

10

3

10

ηK

384

2

10

1

10

0

10

–8

10

–7

10

10

–6

–5

10

–4

10

–3

10

T (K)
Figure 12.6 Evaporation parameter η K for
40 K atoms in a typical sympathetic coolingramp with B0 D 5.7 G and η Rb  8 (dashedline, see text). The curves represent different(K)magnetically trappable values of m F (1/2 to
9/2, from bottom to top). η K rises sharply as
evaporation proceeds and the temperature
decreases, while η Rb remains constant.

12.6 Species-Selective RF Manipulation
(K)

(K)

(Rb)

(K)

as Utd D m F [g F  g F ]µ B B0 . In our experiment, using B0 D 5.7 G and thestretched states of 40 K and 87 Rb, Utd D 5µ B B0 /4 ' kB  480 µK. Thus, we expect tobe able to evaporate T . 480 µK 40 K clouds without affecting the 87 Rb population.
12.6.2
Species-Selective Double Wells

In this section we discuss the species-selective nature of RF-dressed double wells.
In a two-species mixture, this effect permits the simultaneous formation of adouble-well potential for 87 Rb and single-well potential for 40 K [15], and vice versa.
We use an RF amplitude BRF  B0 , for which the effective adiabatic potentials 32)
may be written [11–13]
q
Ueff (r) D m 0F δ(r)2 C Ω (r)2
(12.34)whereδ(r) D µ B g F BDC (r)  „ω RFΩ (r) D µ B g F BRF? (r)/2 ,(12.35)BDC (r)  jB DC (r)j is the static magnetic ﬁeld amplitude, BRF? (r) is the amplitudeof the BRF component which is perpendicular to B DC (r) at point r, and m 0F is thenew, effective magnetic quantum number. The parameters δ(r) and Ω (r) can be
identiﬁed as the local detuning and Rabi frequency of the RF ﬁeld, respectively.
Using Eq. (12.34), we can calculate effective adiabatic potentials for 87 Rb and 40 K
and use them to illustrate the simultaneous creation of single- and double-wellpotentials in a 40 K-87 Rb mixture.
For clarity, we consider the formation of the 87 Rb double well and 40 K single well
separately. Our starting point is a j9/2, 9/2i–j2, 2i 40 K-87 Rb mixture conﬁned to astatic, anisotropic harmonic Z-trap directly above the RF wire (see Figure 12.7a)with B0 D 1.214 G, ω x,z D 2π  1.23 kHz, and ω y D 2π  13.7 Hz.
Rb Double Well An RF ﬁeld with initial frequency ω RF D 2π  800 kHz and detuning δ (Rb) D 50 kHz is applied by ramping up its amplitude from zero to theﬁnal value BRF D 200 mG. A potential barrier is formed at r D 0 by sweeping the
RF frequency through the resonant point δ (Rb) (0) D 0. As the RF ﬁeld is applied,

DC

80

AC

z

y
x

80

AC

80

80

(a)

DC

(b)

Figure 12.7 Atoms conﬁned to single-well (a) and double-well (b) potentials induced by RF
manipulation 80 µm above the chip surface.
32) For BRF  B0 , Eq. (12.34), which relies on the rotating-wave approximation (RWA), is no longer
valid [53, 54, 58].

385

12 Fermions on Atom Chips

2000

RF – dressed potential Ueff (r) / h (kHz)

386

3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0

1000

0

m'F(K)= –9/2

m'(Rb)
F = 2

3

2

1

(b)

0
x

1

2

3

m

3.0

m'(Rb)
F = 2

2.5
1000

m'F(K)= –9/2

2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5

2000
30

(a)

20

10 0 10
x m

20

0.0

30

Figure 12.8 Simultaneous adiabatic dressed
potentials for 87 Rb and 40 K. (a) The 87 Rbdouble-well case. 87 Rb (black) and 40 K (gray)effective dressed potentials are plotted as afunction of the spatial coordinate x (see Figure 12.7). Each curve corresponds to a single
value of m 0F for 87 Rb and 40 K, with the uppermost curves corresponding to m 0F D 2 andm 0F D 9/2, respectively. 87 Rb atoms populate their upper-most m 0F D 2 dressed state(thick, dashed), while 40 K atoms populate
their lower-most m 0F D 9/2 single-well

(c)

3

2

1

0
x

1

2

3

m

dressed state (thick, gray). (b) A closer viewof the 87 Rb double well and 40 K single well,plotted together on a single vertical Ueff / haxis in units of kHz. Both curves have beenshifted vertically to align their potential minima at zero kHz. (c) A closer view of the 40 K
double well and 87 Rb single well, with verticalaxis similar to (b). The dressed 87 Rb single
well (black, dashed) deviates slightly fromthe undressed single well (solid, thin black),
illustrating the slight loss of radial trap curvature.
(Rb)each undressed state is adiabatically connected to one dressed state; here m F D 20(Rb)is connected to m F D 2, shown as the upper-most black curve in Figure 12.8a.
After sweeping to a ﬁnal RF frequency ω RF D 2π  860 kHz, the barrier heightis h  2.4 kHz and the x-direction double-well separation is 4 µ (see Figure 12.8b).
0(Rb)The m F level repulsion at the double-well minima is 70 kHz, sufﬁcient to prevent Landau–Zener spin-ﬂips at our working temperatures T . 1 µK. The 87 Rb0(Rb)population thus remains trapped in the m F D 2 dressed level.
K Single Well The trapping potential for the 40 K atoms is affected in a very different way for the same magnetic ﬁeld conﬁguration. In our current example (Figure 12.8a,b), the detuning for 40 K is positive; δ (K) (0) D 2π  482 kHz at the trap
minimum. Near r D 0, the RF dressing adiabatically connects m F(K) D 9/2 to(K)
m F0 D 9/2. Since [δ (K) (0)]2  [Ω (K) (0)]2 , the potential curvature near r D 0

12.7 Fermions in an Optical Dipole Trap near an Atom Chipis largely unaffected by the RF coupling (see Eq. (12.34)). More quantitatively, thedressed states are most deformed where δ (K) (r)  0, which corresponds to x '˙23 µm, and a potential energy of roughly 110 µK above the local minimum atr D 0. Since our experiments are typically conducted with T . 1 µK, we can besatisﬁed that the 40 K potential retains its original form near r D 0 without inducing
any 40 K loss.
One important feature of this single- and double-well arrangement is that the87
Rb double-well separation and barrier height may be tuned over a wide range by
adjusting ω RF and BRF without affecting the shape of the 40 K potential.
An obvious extension of the work described here and in [15] would be to reverse
the roles of boson and fermion, creating a double well for fermions overlapped witha single well for bosons. The magnetic hyperﬁne structure of 40 K and 87 Rb makes
this possible in a 40 K-87 Rb mixture, but with slightly different results than in the87
Rb-double-well case.
Following the 87 Rb-double-well example of the preceding section, here we sweep
the RF frequency from ω RF D 2π  338 kHz to ω RF D 2π  383 kHz. In the same
static trap with B0 D 1.214 G, δ (K) changes sign from 50 to C5 kHz, while δ (Rb)0(K)
remains negative throughout. This creates a 40 K double well in the m F D 9/2
state with x-direction well separation 4 µm, barrier height h  2.9 kHz at r D 0,0(K)and m F level repulsion 70 kHz at x D ˙2.1 µm. In contrast to the 87 Rb-doublewell scenario, here both 40 K and 87 Rb adiabatically follow their respective uppermost dressed levels, which exhibit their strongest spatial deformation near the trap0(Rb)center. While 40 K experiences a double-well potential, the 87 Rb m F D 2 potential
is a single well with slightly reduced radial curvature from the initial, undressedm F D 2 potential, as shown in Figure 12.8c.
In addition to the species-selectivity of this process, it should be emphasized thatatom chips are particularly well-suited to creating adiabatic dressed-state potentials
due to the proximity of the atoms to chip wire RF antennae. The double wells described in this section were created using RF Rabi frequencies Ω 100200 kHz,
though we can achieve values as large as 1 MHz with tens of milliamperes rms in
the chip wire antenna. By comparison, achieving Ω  1 MHz with an air-side RF
antenna would require a circular coil of radius 3 cm and 3 turns bearing 10 A rms
of AC current.

12.7
Fermions in an Optical Dipole Trap near an Atom Chip

In our discussion of fermions on atom chips thus far, we have focused on spinpolarized 40 K in magnetic traps. In this section we describe an extension of ouratom chip capabilities with the incorporation of an external crossed-beam optical
dipole trap skimming the surface of the atom chip. (See Chapter 3 for a discussionof other on-chip optical potentials.) Optical trapping enables the use of any andall hyperﬁne and Zeeman spin states in our experiments, as well as more ﬂexible
control of the magnetic ﬁeld environment. These added features allow us to work

387

388

12 Fermions on Atom Chipswith strongly interacting 40 K spin mixtures, while retaining the atom chip beneﬁts of near-ﬁeld RF and microwave manipulation and rapid evaporation to Fermi
degeneracy.
12.7.1
Optical Trap Setup

Two optical trapping beams are generated using the output of a single 500-mW
Nd:YAG laser operating at λ D 1064 nm, and directed along the x- and y-directions
through the vacuum cell and beneath the atom chip using air-side optics (see Figure 12.9). Ideally, the foci would be near enough to the chip surface to allow sufﬁcient RF and microwave coupling, but not so near that the optical potential isdegraded by light scattering off the edges of the chip as the beams are focussed.
The beams should also be aligned to the existing Z-trap position for efﬁcient transfer from the Z-trap into the dipole trap. To satisfy these constraints we focus the18
two beams at roughly 190 µ beneath the chip surface, with 1/e 2 waists w0
1.0 and 2.7 mm, respectively, as
and 30 µm, and Rayleigh ranges z0 D π w02 /λshown in Figures 12.9b,c.
12.7.2
Loading the Optical Trap

We load the optical trap by ramping off the Z-trap magnetic ﬁelds and ramping
on the optical beams one at a time. First, the y-direction peak beam intensity is
y
16 mm

z
190

1 mm
18

(b)

x
28 mm

x

z
190

2.7 mm
30

y

(a)

(c)

Figure 12.9 Alignment of the dipole beams
to the atom chip. (a) Bottom view, showing
the alignment with the Z-wire and the trapped
atoms (black ellipse). (b, c) Side-views ofbeams skimming 190 µm below the atom chipsurface. Beam waists and Rayleigh ranges areindicated, along with the outer dimensions of
the atom chip (black) and copper mounting
block (light gray). Dimensions are in units of
micrometers unless otherwise indicated.

12.7 Fermions in an Optical Dipole Trap near an Atom Chip

389

increased linearly from 0 to
2.9  107 mW/cm2 in 100 ms. The Z-trap is thenramped off in 50 ms. Finally, the x-direction peak beam intensity is linearly ramped
from 0 to 8.5  106 mW/cm2 in 100 ms.
Unlike when loading the Z-trap from the macroscopic magnetic trap (see Section 12.4.1), the mode matching between the Z-trap and the initial single-beam
optical trap is excellent. This allows us to load the optical trap with no observable
loss in atom number, but not without introducing some heating: 6  103 atoms
in the Z-trap at T/ TF ' 0.56 are all transferred into the optical trap, after which
T/ TF ' 1.
12.7.3
Microwave and RF Manipulation

With the atoms now trapped solely by the optical trap, we can use the antenna wire(see Section 12.3.1) to apply microwave radiation with amplitude B µ and frequency
ωµ2π  1.3 GHz to drive transitions between 40 K hyperﬁne ground states. To
test and calibrate our microwave system, however, we ﬁrst observed the effects of
microwave radiation on magnetically trapped 40 K. By scanning the microwave frequency near 1.3 GHz in a Z-trap with magnetic minimum B0 D 5.22 G, we observea loss feature in the trapped atom number, corresponding to hyperﬁne transitions
between the initial trapped state j9/2, 9/2i and the ﬁnal, untrapped j7/2, 7/2i state(see Figure 12.10a).
Microwave and RF manipulation also allow us to create an interacting Fermi gas
in the optical trap with a j9/2, 9/2i  j9/2, 7/2i spin mixture after loading a spinpolarized sample from the Z-trap in state j9/2, 9/2i. Atoms are transferred fromj9/2, 9/2i to j9/2, 7/2i by rapid adiabatic transfer. In a 20-G external magnetic bias
ﬁeld, we sweep the microwave frequency from below the j9/2, 9/2i ! j7/2, 7/2itransition (ω µ D 2π  1235.8 MHz) to above the j7/2, 7/2i ! j9/2, 7/2i transition (ω µ D 2π  1336.2 MHz) in 500 ms. This is followed by a 5-ms RF frequency
14000

4000

mF = 9/2

3000
2000
mF = −7/2~5.85 MHz

1000
0

(a)

650

750 850 950
ωµ ( + 1.272 GHz )atom number

atom number

5000

12000
10000

6000
4000

mF = −9/2

1050

(b)

Figure 12.10 (a) Microwave-induced atom
number 40 K loss from a magnetic Z-trap. (b)Schematic Zeeman level diagram of the 40 KF D 9/2 hyperﬁne ground state, indicating the
microwave adiabatic rapid population transfer(dashed arrow) and RF pulse (solid arrow)

8000

(c)

190
200
210
220
magnetic field amplitude (G)used to create a j9/2, 7/2i  j9/2, 9/2i
spin mixture (see text). (c) 3-body loss of
spin-mixed 40 K from an optical trap is due
to an enhancement of the scattering crosssection induced by the Feshbach resonancenear 202 G.

390

12 Fermions on Atom Chips

sweep from ω RF D 2π  5.80 MHz to 2π  5.90 MHz (see Figure 12.10b), creating
an equal spin mixture of j9/2, 9/2i and j9/2, 7/2i.
The 40 K-40 K interaction strength may be dramatically increased using the wellknown Feshbach resonance in a DC magnetic ﬁeld of roughly 202 G [59]. Using
external coils, we apply a magnetic bias ﬁeld and monitor the 40 K population as afunction of this ﬁeld. We have observed the Feshbach resonance in our atom chip
setup as a strong loss feature near 202 G, as shown in Figure 12.10b. The atom
number loss is attributed to 3-body decay induced by the strong interactions near
the Feshbach resonance.

12.8
Discussion and Future Outlook

The union of Fermi gases and atom chips is an important step forward in degenerate quantum gas research. In this chapter, we have described our work producing
the ﬁrst DFG on an atom chip. Using a large dual-species MOT, 40 K and 87 Rb are
captured and loaded onto an atom chip in numbers large enough to enable sympathetic evaporative cooling to DFG and dual DFG-BEC quantum degeneracy. The
strong conﬁnement and large inter-species collision rate afforded by the micromagnetic trap permits an evaporation to quantum degeneracy in as little as 6 s,
faster than had been previously possible in magnetic traps. We have also demonstrated species-selective double-well potentials in a 40 K-87 Rb mixture, as well as thecreation of a strongly interacting 40 K DFG in a crossed-beam optical dipole trap
skimming the surface of the atom chip.
We also note several disadvantages associated with using micro-magnetic traps
for fermions. Magnetic traps are not ideal for working with the spin-mixtures required for an interacting DFG, since spin-changing collisions can populate magnetically untrapped spin states, causing loss. We address this limitation by incorporating a crossed-beam optical dipole trap into our atom chip setup. The relatively
small trap volumes of microtraps also limits the number of target 40 K and refrigerant 87 Rb atoms that can be loaded into the chip trap. Even at our maximum
achievable trap depth, these limits on the number of refrigerant atoms ultimately limit the DFG to 4  104 atoms at T/ TF & 0.1 in our system. By comparison,larger, colder, interacting DFGs are routinely produced in spin-independent opticalpotentials [2].
Despite these drawbacks, atom chips remain a useful and versatile tool for ultracold Fermi gas research. We close this chapter with descriptions of some of ourongoing and future research directions with a new atom chip: double-well potentials; interacting DFGs and DFG-BEC mixtures; and optical probes and traps.
New Atom Chip We have recently adopted a richer atom chip design, which improves on its predecessor (described in Section 12.3) in three important areas. First,
the new conductor layout allows a wider selection of micro-magnetic traps withgreater tunability of the oscillation frequencies. We are also now able to generate12.8 Discussion and Future Outlook

RF double-well potentials at arbitrary angles and distances from the chip surface, asin [12]. Second, new near-ﬁeld antenna wire geometries and high-frequency electrical feedthroughs improve microwave and RF impedance matching, reducing coupling losses between the air-side and the chip. Finally, all electrical connections tothe chip are made on the back side of the substrate, increasing the optical access forprobe and trapping beams compared to its predecessor. Designed and fabricated at
the University of Toronto [60], the chip consists primarily of silver conductors thatwere patterned by photolithography and evaporatively deposited onto an aluminum
nitride substrate.
Bose–Fermi Mixtures and Double-Well Potentials The species-selectivity of RFdressed double-well potentials may be useful in studying boson–fermion interactions in ultra-cold atomic mixtures. The strong attractive interaction between 40 K
and 87 Rb, known to impede sympathetic cooling in 40 K-87 Rb mixtures, depends
on the inter-species collision rate and related peak 40 K and 87 Rb number densities [5, 40, 41, 43]. Adiabatic RF manipulation could be used to reduce the 87 Rb0(Rb)peak density by decompressing the m F D 2 effective potential at the center of
the trap during sympathetic RF evaporation. Ideally, the RF-dressed 40 K-87 Rb collision rate would be small enough to avoid a density-driven collapse, but still large
enough to maintain good inter-species rethermalization for sympathetic cooling.
These potentials are also amenable to the study of phase coherence in the 40 K87
Rb mixture as the potential barrier is raised. Recent studies of phase-coherent RF
splitting of 87 Rb BECs on atom chips [11, 12, 14] and in optical traps [61, 62] havefocused on interactions and tunneling in BEC-in-double-well systems. An interesting extension of this work would be to assess the effects of a background, unsplit
fermion “bath” on the tunneling dynamics and coherence properties of this system.
Light Scattering by a DFG An inhibition of optical scattering is predicted to occur
in DFGs when EF & ER , where ER is the recoil energy [63, 64]. The optical scattering rate depends on the availability of atomic recoil states (“ﬁnal states”), which isconstrained due to Pauli blocking in the ﬁlled or nearly ﬁlled Fermi sea of a trapped
DFG. The large oscillation frequencies and Fermi energies available in anisotropic,
N see Section 12.2.1) offer a promising
harmonic atom chip microtraps (EF / ω,route toward measurements of this effect (see [65] and references therein).

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