Integrated optical components on atom chips

We report on the integration of small-scale optical components into silicon wafers for use in atom chips. We present an on-chip fibre-optic atom detection scheme that can probe clouds with small atom numbers. The fibres can also be used to generate microscopic dipole traps. We describe our most recent results with optical microcavities and show that a sufficiently high finesse can be achieved to enable single-atom detection on an atom chip. The key components have been fabricated by etching directly into the atom chip silicon substrate.