K. S. Johnson

Micro-electromagnets for atom manipulation

Micro-electromagnets for atom manipulation have been constructed, including magnetic mirrors (serpentine patterns) and traps (circular patterns). They consist of planar micron-scale Au wires on sapphire substrates fabricated using lithography and electroplating. At liquid nitrogen or helium temperatures in vacuum the wires support currents of several amperes with current density ∼108 A/cm2 and power dissipation ∼10 kW/cm2, and they produce magnetic fields to 0.3 T and gradients to 103 T/cm. The micro-electromagnet mirror was used to deflect a beam of metastable helium atoms at grazing angles ∼0.5 mrad.

NANOSTRUCTURE FABRICATION IN SILICON USING CESIUM TO PATTERN A SELF-ASSEMBLED MONOLAYER

This letter describes the formation of nanometer-scale features in a silicon substrate using a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) of octylsiloxane on silicon dioxide as a resist sensitive to a patterned beam of neutral cesium atoms. The mask that patterned the atomic beam was a silicon nitride membrane perforated with nm and μm scale holes, in contact with the substrate surface. In a two-step wet-chemical etching process, the pattern formed in the SAM was transferred first into the SiO2 layer and then into an underlying silicon substrate. This process demonstrated the formation of silicon features with diameter ∼60 nm.

Nanolithography with metastable neon atoms: Enhanced rate of contamination resist formation for nanostructure fabrication

We report a sevenfold improvement in the rate of contamination resist formation over previous experiments by using metastable neon atoms for nanolithography. Chemically assisted ion beam etching was used to transfer the resist pattern into the substrate. We demonstrate the fabrication of 50-nm-wide features in GaAs with well-defined edges and an aspect ratio >2:1. These are the best resolution and highest aspect ratio features that have been achieved with metastable atom lithography. The resist formation rate by the metastable neon atoms and the etch selectivity of the contamination resist with GaAs were measured.

Using neutral metastable argon atoms and contamination lithography to form nanostructures in silicon, silicon dioxide, and gold

This letter describes the fabrication of ∼80 nm structures in silicon, silicon dioxide, and gold substrates by exposing the substrates to a beam of metastable argon atoms in the presence of dilute vapors of trimethylpentaphenyltrisiloxane, the dominant constituent of diffusion pump oil used in these experiments. The atoms release their internal energy upon contacting the siloxanes physisorbed on the surface of the substrate, and this release causes the formation of a carbon‐based resist. The atomic beam was patterned by a silicon nitride membrane, and the pattern formed in the resist material was transferred to the substrates by chemical etching. Simultaneous exposure of large areas (44 cm2) was also demonstrated.

Demonstration of a nonmagnetic blazed-grating atomic beam splitter.

We demonstrate a coherent atomic beam splitter for metastable helium atoms, based on the diffraction of atomic matter waves from a blazed phase grating. The beam splitter is created by driving the two transitions of a three-level V system with differentially detuned standing light waves that have a relative spatial phase shift of pi/2. The light f ields create a potential that is approximately triangular as a function of position in the laser field. Splittings of 38 times the photon momentum have been observed.

Nanofabrication using neutral atomic beams

We present a survey of neutral atom lithography. The combination of nm-scale features, large-area parallel deposition, and effective resists demonstrates the promise of atoms as a lithographic element. We demonstrate the transfer of 70-nm-wide features from a neutral atomic beam into a substrate using several resists, including self-assembled monolayers of alkanethiolates on Au and of alkylsiloxanes on SiO2, and “contamination” resists deposited from vapor. Unlike photons and electrons, noble gas atoms in energetic metastable states have an internal state structure that is easily manipulable, introducing the possibility of novel lithographic schemes based on the optical quenching of internal energy.

Substrate-based atom waveguide using guided two-color evanescent light fields

We propose a dipole-force linear waveguide which confines neutral atoms up to

PROPERTIES OF MICROELECTROMAGNET MIRRORS AS REFLECTORS OF COLD RB ATOMS

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Metastable-atom-activated growth of an ultrathin carbonaceous resist for reactive ion etching of SiO2 and Si3N4

above a microfabricated single-mode dielectric optical guide. The optical guide carries far blue-detuned light in the horizontally-polarized TE mode and far red-detuned light in the vertically-polarized TM mode, with both modes close to optical cut-off. A trapping minimum in the transverse plane is formed above the optical guide due to the differing evanescent decay lengths of the two modes. This design allows manufacture of mechanically stable atom-optical elements on a substrate. We calculate the full vector bound modes for an arbitrary guide shape using two-dimensional non-uniform finite elements in the frequency-domain, allowing us to optimize atom waveguide properties. We find that a rectangular optical guide of

Atomic beam splitters with achromatic transverse-momentum transfer

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