Designing Ratchets in Ultra-cold Atoms for the Advanced Undergraduate Laboratory

We propose to perform ratchet experiments in cold Rubidium atoms using state-of-the-art home-built tapered amplifier and imaging systems. Our tapered amplifier system amplifies the output from home-built external cavity tunable diode lasers up to a factor 100 and costs less than {\$}5,000, in contrast to commercial tapered amplifier systems, which cost upward of {\$}20,000. We have developed an imaging system with LabVIEW integration, which allows for approximately 2 millisecond exposures and microsecond control of experimental parameters. Our imaging system also costs less than {\$}5,000 in comparison to commercial options, which cost between {\$}40-50,000. Progress toward implementation of a one-dimensional rocking ratchet is described.