Potential roughness suppression in a RF AC Zeeman atom chip trap

Trapping and manipulating ultracold atoms through the use of atom chips offers the ability to engineer complex electromagnetic field geometries in a compact form factor. One of the primary limitations hindering their use is trap potential roughness which arises as a result of defects in the atom chip wires when atoms are brought close to the chip. This roughness can play a limiting role in atom interferometry and strong 1D confinement experiments. We present an initial experimental demonstration of atom chip potential roughness suppression using radio-frequency (RF) AC Zeeman (ACZ) potentials on an atom chip. Using ∼20 MHz RF magnetic near-fields from the chip to target intra-manifold transitions in the 87Rb ground state, we trap atoms in a spindependent ACZ potential. We compare the axial trapping potential for atoms in comparable 2-wire DC and AC Zeeman traps and show evidence of roughness suppression in the AC trap.