Mesoscopic Magnetic Chip Traps for NASA's Cold Atom Laboratory

NASA’s Cold Atom Lab facility (CAL) provides a unique microgravity environment ideal for ultracold atom experiments investigating fundamental physics, new technologies, and quantum matter [1]. To take advantage of the ISS environment for atom interrogation and precision measurements, atoms must be brought to near rest without strong, confining magnetic fields [2]. Currently CAL’s tight atom chip trap is loaded directly from a quadrupole trap; this is a low efficiency transfer that significantly limits the final total atom number. Due to the atom chip’s current design, the final magnetic trap is also limited in trap frequencies and range of physical translation. As part of a near-term upgrade to CAL, we are investigating an auxiliary mesoscopic magnetic trap design to enable an intermediary stage of the atom loading process for higher transfer efficiency and also provide additional flexibility to generate very low frequency traps and an improved range of aspect ratios. This poster discusses the progress made toward upgrading CAL’s magnetic trap capabilities for reaching higher numbers of ultracold rubidium atoms and potentially colder samples in microgravity.