Fig. 1

The planar concept for atomic beams. a In a fully planar vision, atoms propagate from a source region into a planar device that has been lithographically etched into a silicon chip. Shown schematically are multiple sequential operations including beam formation by collimation, laser deceleration and/or cooling, atom interferometry or other sensing protocols using guided atoms, followed by detection. Blue arrows indicate the direction of the atomic beam propagation. b Rubidium atom beam collimation as the first nontrivial element demonstrated in this work. Adjacent image shows the experimentally observed fluorescence output of 20 individually resolved collimation channels. c Optical and d scanning electron micrograph (SEM) end images of the channels show the etched base wafer and sealing capping wafer. e–g SEM top images before bonding the capping wafer showing microchannels that (e) collimated the atomic beam, f produced a focusing beam, and g created two beams propagating at a relative angle of 12 degrees. Channel dimensions in e were 100 × 10 × 3 mm (h × w × l) dimension, with 50 μm wall thickness between channels. Wall thicknesses as small as 10 μm were fabricated. In all cases high flux, effusive Rb atomic beams were successfully generated