Realization of a superconducting atom chip

We have trapped rubidium atoms in the magnetic field produced by a superconducting atom chip operated at liquid Helium temperatures. Up to $8.2cdot 10^5$ atoms are held in a Ioffe-Pritchard trap at a distance of 440 $mu$m from the chip surface, with a temperature of 40 $mu$K. The trap lifetime reaches 115 s at low atomic densities. These results open the way to the exploration of atom--surface interactions and coherent atomic transport in a superconducting environment, whose properties are radically different from normal metals at room temperature.