International audienceA trapped atom interferometer involving state-selective adiabatic potentials with two microwave frequencies on a chip is proposed. We show that this configuration provides a way to achieve a high degree of symmetry between the two arms of the interferometer, which is necessary for coherent splitting and recombination of thermal (i.e., noncondensed) atoms. The resulting interferometer holds promise to achieve high contrast and long coherence time, while avoiding the mean-field interaction issues of interferometers based on trapped Bose-Einstein condensates

We investigate some properties of an atom chip made of a gold microcircuit deposited on a transparent silicon carbide substrate. A favorable thermal behavior is observed in the presence of electrical current, twice as good as a silicon counterpart. We obtain one hundred million rubidium atoms in a magneto-optical trap with several of the beams passing through the chip. We point out the importance of coating of the chip against reflection to avoid a temperature-dependent Fabry-Perot effect. We finally discuss detection through the chip, potentially granting large numerical apertures, as well as some other potential applications.

We demonstrate the possibility of trapping about one hundred million rubidium atoms in a magneto-optical trap with several of the beams passing through a transparent atom chip mounted on a vacuum cell wall. The chip is made of a gold microcircuit deposited on a silicon carbide substrate, with favorable thermal conductivity.We show how a retro-reflected configuration can efficiently address the chip birefringence issues, allowing atom trapping at arbitrary distances from the chip. We also demonstrate detection through the chip, granting a large numerical aperture. This configuration is compared to other atom chip devices, and some possible applications are discussed.