Apparatus for Creating Big Time Crystals Based on Bouncing Ultracold Atoms

This thesis describes the design and construction of a dedicated optics apparatus to create a new state of quantum matter, a time crystal. Time crystals are a quantum-physics related phenomenon in which a periodically driven many-body system, such as a Bose-Einstein condensate of ultracold atoms, spontaneously self-reorganises its motion so that it evolves with a period longer than the driving period. These systems are predicted to reveal novel condensed matter phenomena in the time domain. Possible practical applications of time crystals include quantum information processing, sensitive magnetic field sensors and atomic clocks.