The CanAtFlex project aims at the transport of cold atoms in a channelized, lossless and finely focused manner on a spot of about ten microns. The project originates from the optical channeling of a jet of cold atoms exiting a 2DMOT in a hollow optical mode (called Laguerre-Gauss mode) which has been demonstrated by the TWIST team (Opt. Lett.39, 719-722, 2014). Initially realized with a millimeter dimension, it is now a question of reaching a dimension of a few microns and understanding the associated physics: physics of confined atoms, interaction between atoms, atom transport. Such a system will allow atoms to enter small objects. One envisaged application is to enter the atoms into a hollow fiber for example to make microcells for metrology.

The proposed internship has two aspects: experimental with the realization of the focusing of the atoms; theoretical with the modeling of the dynamics of the atoms. According to the sanitary conditions, the ratio theory/experiment will be adapted. This work may be continued to a PhD done in collaboration with XLIM (Limoges)