Realization of a Superconducting Atom Chip

We have trapped rubidium atoms in the magnetic field produced by a superconducting atom chip operated at liquid helium temperatures. Up to 8.2×10⁵ atoms are held in a Ioffe-Pritchard trap at a distance of 440 μm from the chip surface, with a temperature of 40 μK. The trap lifetime reaches 115 s at low atomic densities. These results open the way to the exploration of atom-surface interactions and coherent atomic transport in a superconducting environment, whose properties are radically different from normal metals at room temperature.