Magnetic confinement of neutral atoms based on patterned vortex distributions in superconducting disks and rings

Abstract

We propose and analyze neutral atom traps generated by vortices imprinted by magnetic field pulse sequences in type II superconducting disks and rings. We compute the supercurrent distribution and magnetic field resulting from the vortices in the superconductor. Different patterns of vortices can be written by versatile loading field sequences. We discuss in detail procedures to generate quadrupole traps, self-sufficient traps, and ring traps based on superconducting disks and rings. The ease of creating these traps and the low current noise in supercurrent-carrying structures make our approach attractive for designing atom chip interferometers and probes.