Microscopic electro-optical atom trap on an evanescent-wave mirror

Abstract

We put forward the idea of a surface-mounted microscopic electro-optical atom trap. The trap is formed on an evanescent-wave atom mirror by the strongly localized static electric field of two oppositely charged transparent electrodes placed close to each other. The electrodes are embedded in a refractive-index-matched thin dielectric layer on the surface of a glass prism. In our example, the phase-space density in the trap center reaches 0.1, when the trap is loaded with atoms from a gravito-optical surface trap.