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arXiv:0709.2212 · Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics

Molecular Bose–Einstein condensation in a versatile low power crossed dipole trap

Jean-Noël Fuchs, G J Duffy, G. Veeravalli, Paul Dyke, M. Bartenstein, Chris J. Vale, Peter Hannaford, W J Rowlands

Published Oct 9, 2007• 25 citations
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Abstract

We produce Bose–Einstein condensates of 6 Li 2 molecules in a low power (22 W) crossed optical dipole trap. Fermionic 6 Li atoms are collected in a magneto-optical trap from a Zeeman slowed atomic beam and then loaded into the optical dipole trap where they are evaporatively cooled to quantum degeneracy. Our simplified system offers a high degree of flexibility in trapping geometry for studying ultracold Fermi and Bose gases.

DOI
10.1088/0953-4075/40/20/011

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We produce Bose–Einstein condensates of 6 Li 2 molecules in a low power (22 W) crossed optical dipole trap. Fermionic 6 Li atoms are collected in a magneto-optical trap from a Zeeman slowed atomic beam and then loaded into the optical dipole trap where they are evaporatively cooled to quantum degeneracy. Our simplified system offers a high degree of flexibility in trapping geometry for studying ultracold Fermi and Bose gases.
We achieve a highly degenerate and strongly interacting Fermi gas in a mixture of the two lowest hyperfine states of 6 Li by direct evaporative cooling in a high power crossed optical dipole trap. The trap is loaded from a large atom number magneto-optical trap realized by a laser system of 2.5-W intracavity-frequency-doubled light output at 671 nm. With this system, we also demonstrate the production of a molecular Bose-Einstein condensate (mBEC) of 6 Li 2 , and observe the anisotropic expansion of Fermi gases in the so-called BEC-Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer crossover regime.
This thesis describes the production of molecular Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) of 6Li2 dimers and binding energy measurements of p-wave Feshbach molecules. A σ− Zeeman slower is used to produce a continuous beam of isotopically enriched 6Li atoms at speeds low enough to load a magneto-optical trap (MOT). We currently have a flux of slowed atoms of ~ 5 · 106 atoms/s loading the MOT with more than 108 atoms. We then transfer up to 106 atoms in an almost equal spin mixture of the two lowest hyperfine states into an optical dipole trap. We achieved condensates in three different crossed optical dipole trap geometries. The initial low power optical dipole trap was formed using light from a 25WVersaDisk Yb:YAG laser at 1030 nm. It consisted of a 15 W beam crossed with a 13 W beam at about 80 degrees with a waist of approximately 30 μm in each beam. By translating the focus of the second beam we could change the trap geometry from near symmetric to elongated. Nowadays, we produce condensates in a crossed dipole trap formed by a 100 W fibre laser. Both arms are focussed to a waist of 40 μm, cross each other at 14 degrees and have laser powers of ~80 W and ~70 W, respectively. Evaporative cooling is achieved by reducing the laser power near the broad s-wave Feshbach resonance at 834 G. By tuning to the low magnetic field side (770 G) of the Feshbach resonance molecules are formed through three-body recombination at sufficiently low temperatures. Further evaporation leads to the creation of a molecular BEC. After reducing the laser power by a factor of about 1000 in approximately 3 s we have observed more than 30 000 condensed molecules. During the evaporation the temperature decreases from about 100 μK to below 100 nK. We present measurements of the binding energies of 6Li p-wave Feshbach molecules formed in combinations of the |F = 1/2,mF = +1/2i (|1i) and |F = 1/2,mF = −1/2i (|2i) states. The binding energies scale linearly with magnetic field detuning for all three resonances. The relative molecular magnetic moments are found to be 113 ± 7 μK/G, 111 ± 6 μK/G and 118 ± 8 μK/G for the |1i − |1i, |1i − |2i and |2i − |2i resonances, respectively, in good agreement with theoretical predictions.
We report our experimental apparatus for producing 6 Li quantum gases with good optical access. Atoms are first captured in a D 2 magneto-optical trap (MOT) and subsequently cooled via a compressed MOT and D 1 gray molasses, reaching sub-Doppler temperatures as low as 70 μ K . The cold atoms are then loaded into a single-beam optical dipole trap and transported into a compact octagonal glass cell, where forced evaporative cooling is performed. We achieve quantum degeneracy, observe the formation of a molecular Bose–Einstein condensate containing 1 × 10 5 atom pairs, and demonstrate controlled tomographic imaging, thereby establishing a versatile platform for future studies of three-dimensional (3D) superfluid dynamics.
This thesis reports on the construction of an apparatus capable of producing a molecular Bose-Einstein-Condensate (BEC) of 6Li2. To create a condensate fermionic lithium is first evaporated in an oven, slowed by a Zeeman slower and captured in a magneto-optical-trap (MOT). A scheme for creating time-averaged arbitrary optical potentials for optimized transfer of the atoms from the MOT to a high-power, far detuned optical dipole trap was implemented, as well as magnetic field coils to tune the interactions of the atoms via Feshbach resonances. The first experiments with the new machine include the characterization of the optical dipole trap and evaporative cooling of 6Li.
We report efficient production of quantum gases of 6 Li using a sub-Doppler cooling scheme based on the D 1 transition. After loading in a standard magneto-optical trap, an atomic sample of 10 9 atoms is cooled at a temperature of 40 μ K by a bichromatic D 1 gray-molasses. More than 2 × 10 7 atoms are then transferred into a high-intensity optical dipole trap, where a two-spin state mixture is evaporatively cooled down to quantum degeneracy. We observe that D 1 cooling remains effective in the deep trapping potential, allowing an effective increase of the atomic phase-space density before starting the evaporation. In a total experimental cycle of 11 s, we produce weakly-interacting degenerate Fermi gases of 7 × 10 5 atoms at T/T F < 0.1 and molecular Bose-Einstein condensates of up 5 × 10 5 molecules. We further describe a simple and compact optical system both for high-resolution imaging and for imprinting a thin optical barrier on the atomic cloud; this represents a first step towards the study of quantum tunneling in strongly interacting superfluid Fermi gases.