Professor Ed Hinds (Imperial College London)
Matter-wave interferometer on an atom chip
In our experiment a single condensate of Rubidium atoms in a magnetic trap is split into two parts using radio-frequency-induced potentials, transforming the initial single-well into a double-well. The two condensates are then released from their traps and allowed to interfere as they expand and fall under gravity, producing the characteristic interference-fringe pattern. This fringe pattern can be used to make measurements of the relative energy between the two condensates.