An atom fiber for guiding cold neutral atoms

We present an omnidirectional matter wave guide on an atom chip. The rotational symmetry of the guide is maintained by a combination of two current carrying wires and a bias field pointing perpendicular to the chip surface. We demonstrate guiding of thermal atoms around more than two complete turns along a spiral shaped 25mm long curved path (curve radii down to 200 µ m) at various atom–surface distances (35-450 µ m). An extension of the scheme for the guiding of Bose-Einstein condensates is outlined.