The MIT atom laser operating at 200 Hz. The movie (field of view 1.8 mm x 3.9 mm) shows pulses of coherent sodium atoms coupled out from a Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a magnetic trap. Every five milliseconds, a short rf pulse rotated the magnetic moment of the trapped atoms, transferring a fraction of these atoms into a quantum state which is no longer confined ("non-magnetic"m=0 state). These atoms were accelerated downward by gravity and spread out. The atom pulses were observed by absorption imaging. Each of them contained between 10^5 and 10^6 atoms.

For more information, see our original publication.

Link to file for download