Direct laser cooling of molecules has reached a phase-space density exceeding 10^{-6} in optical traps but with rather small molecular numbers. To progress toward quantum degeneracy, a mechanism that combines sub-Doppler cooling and magneto-optical trapping would facilitate near unity transfer of ultracold molecules from the magneto-optical trap (MOT) to a conservative optical trap. Using the unique energy level structure of YO molecules, we demonstrate the first blue-detuned MOT for molecules that is optimized for both gray-molasses sub-Doppler cooling and relatively strong trapping forces. This first sub-Doppler molecular MOT provides an increase of phase-space density by 2 orders of magnitude over any previously reported molecular MOT.
We report an experimental study of peak and phase-space density of a two-stage magneto-optical trap (MOT) of
6Li atoms, which exploits the narrower $2{S}_{1/2}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}3{P}_{3/2}$ ultraviolet (UV) transition at 323 nm following trapping and cooling on the more common
D2 transition at 671 nm. The UV MOT is loaded from a red MOT and is compressed to give a high phase-space density up to $3\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}4}$. Temperatures as low as $33\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{K}$ are achieved on the UV transition. We study the density limiting factors and in particular find a value for the light-assisted collisional loss coefficient of $1.3\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.4\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}10}$
cm3/s for low repumping intensity.
We study the magneto-optical trap (MOT) as an optical lattice with a setup providing full phase control for all light fields. Although completely different light fields are possible for various phases, we have found experimental evidence that stored atoms are generally localized in micropotentials of the six-beam lattice. The influence of the phase variation is surprisingly small, suggesting that the robust behavior of the MOT is a consequence of this fact. We find furthermore good agreement of our experimental data with a simple theoretical model which reduces the complicated MOT to a description of steady-state atoms localized at points of the deepest adiabatic light-shift potential.