| External cavity diode laser systems (ECDLs) have been well documented for their suitability in the fields of laser cooling and atom trapping, and are now widely used in optical and atomic physics. A particularly simple implementation of this idea uses feedback from a diffraction grating mounted in the Littrow configuration and the typical size of this laser is quite large (120mmx90mmx90mm). For atom optics, the current atom trapping chips are not in a feedthrough configuration, which makes the chips to glass cell assembly process complicated and the wires and solder areas vulnerable, resulting in an unreliable vacuum seal. Recent experimental realizations of atom optical devices such as atomic waveguides, beam splitters, and on-chip Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) sources have opened a new field for the development of more complex devices such as, e.g., BEC-based atom transistor. This work focuses on micro/nano fabrication techniques to build three different devices for the miniature BEC system. The research work focuses on the development of new ECDLs, a novel fabrication process of feedthrough atom trapping chips for atomic optics and a fabrication process for atom transistor chips. In the ECDLs part, we describe a new method for constructing a smaller external-cavity diode laser by use of a micromachined silicon flexure and a VHG (Volume Holographic Grating). It is much smaller, inexpensive and easy to build because it is based on simple modifications of a few commercial optical and mechanical components but with a specific silicon flexure design enabled by micro-fabrication technology for the laser frequency tuning. In the feedthrough chips part, we present a novel fabrication process for feedthrough atom trapping chips in atomic condensate optics cells using the copper electroplating to seal the vias. The advantages of using feedthrough atom trapping chips are the simple microfabrication process and reduction of the overall chip area bonded on the glass atom-trapping cell. The fabricated feedthrough atom trapping chips for atomic optics experiments meet both requirements for high current electrical conduction as well as high vacuum sealing. In the atom transistor chips part, we describe a fabrication process using a combination of UV-optical and electron beam lithography to pattern micrometer and nanometer scale copper wires on a single chip. The electrical current test results establish the feasibility of realizing chip-based atom-tunneling experiments. |
