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arXiv:1704.05315 · Physical Review A

Bose-Einstein condensation of erbium atoms in a quasielectrostatic optical dipole trap

Jens Ulitzsch, Daniel Babik, Roberto Vittorio Roell, Martin Weitz

Published Apr 13, 2017• 12 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

A dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate of erbium atoms is created in an optical dipole trap which is produced by a laser with midinfrared wavelength. The tight confinement of the trap may facilitate future studies of the dipolar atoms by allowing a setup of trapping with only one laser beam.
DOI
10.1103/physreva.95.043614

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We have created a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of 87Rb{}^{87}\mathrm{Rb}87Rb atoms directly in an optical trap. We employ a quasielectrostatic dipole force trap formed by two crossed CO2{\mathrm{CO}}_{2}CO2​ laser beams. Loading directly from a sub-Doppler laser-cooled cloud of atoms results in initial phase space densities of $\ensuremath{\sim}1/200$. Evaporatively cooling through the BEC transition is achieved by lowering the power in the trapping beams over $\ensuremath{\sim}2\mathrm{s}$. The resulting condensates are F=1F\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}=\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}1F=1 spinors with $3.5\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{4}$ atoms distributed between the ${m}_{F}\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}=\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}(\ensuremath{-}1,0,1)$ states.
Summary form only given. Recently, we have created a Bose condensate of /sup 87/Rb atoms directly in an optical trap formed by tightly focused laser beams. Following initial loading from a laser cooled gas, evaporative cooling through the BEC transition is achieved by simply lowering the depth of the optical trap. Our success is due in part to a high initial phase space density realized in the loading of our optical dipole trap and in part to the tight confinement of the atoms that permits rapid evaporative cooling to the BEC transition in 2 s.
In 1925, Einstein predicted the condensation of bosons into the ground state of the system for low (but finite) temperatures. Several phenomena, including superfluidity and superconductivity have been associated with Bose-Einstein condensation, but these systems interact strongly with their environment and pure Bose-Einstein condensation could not be established. It took 70 years, in which time the laser was discovered, and laser cooling techniques to manipulate atoms in a dilute atomic gas, before Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute atomic gases could be demonstrated in 1995. In the first condensation experiments, BECs were created in a magnetic trap. Since in a magnetic trap not all mF states of the atom can be trapped simultaneously, thereby limiting the number of experiments that can be done, other ways of trapping and generating BECs were sought and found. In 2001, the first all-optical BEC was made, where the dipole force was used to trap atoms in the crossing of two far red detuned laser beams. In an optical dipole trap not only atoms in different internal states can be trapped, but also different atomic species simultaneously. In this thesis, the formation of an all-optical Bose-Einstein condensate with rubidium atoms is presented. Conventional all-optical BECs are usually created in high power CO2 laser dipole traps, or have complicated laser cooling schemes and complex dipole trap setups. In our simple and straightforward setup, we load rubidium atoms from a magneto-optical trap into a crossed optical dipole trap created by a single frequency Yb:YAG laser with a wavelength at 1030 nm. The small wavelength allows for a small diffraction limit, and permits us to use standard optical materials, thus making the experimental setup cost effective. Other attempts to achieve Bose-Einstein condensation in a multi-mode (frequency) fiber laser at 1064 nm failed, because the atom loss was quite high. It is assumed that the multi-mode character of the fiber laser induces Raman transitions in rubidium atoms, thereby heating them. We can trap about ∼ 5E7 atoms in a single beam dipole trap out of ∼ 5E9 atoms trapped in theMOT, and ∼ 350,000 atoms can be trapped in a crossed beam dipole trap due to the smaller trap volume. 70% of the atoms in the dipole trap is optically pumped into one mF state. Quantum degeneracy is reached by evaporatively cooling the atoms in the crossed dipole trap by ramping down the laser power with three linear ramps. We can independently change the power of each beam by an AOM. This allows us to use one beam as an atom waveguide for future experiments. After evaporation, we typically have about 10,000 atoms at a temperature below the critical temperature. We have proved Bose-Einstein condensation by using the anisotropic expansion of a quantum degenerate gas trapped in an anisotropic potential. The aspect ratio of our atom cloud changed during a time of flight from 0.7 to 1.2 in 10 ms, thus proving that we have reached quantum degeneracy. We have about 5,000 condensed atoms in our optical dipole trap at a temperature less than 100 nK. The remaining atoms are thermal. Bose-Einstein condensation is obtained within 8 s, and we can repeat the experiment every 30 s. It should be mentioned that the Bose-Einstein experiment was moved from the ”Leibniz Universität Hannover” to the ”Technische Universität Darmstadt”, and had to be completely rebuilt. All-optical Bose-Einstein condensation was reached within one year after the move. Our Bose-Einstein condensation setup presents an ideal starting point for using our condensates in combination with miniaturized atom optical setups based on our novel microfabricated optical elements. With our microlenses, we can create a number of possible dipole trap configurations, such as the dipole trap array or the cylindrical microlens array. Using microlenses in miniaturized atom optical setups opens a completely new field of coherent atom optics. Also because the tight confinement of the microtraps allows us to load a 3D BEC, a 1D BEC, or a Tonks-Girardeau gas in the micropotentials depending on the density.
Bose-Einstein condensates of sodium atoms have been confined in an optical dipole trap using a single focused infrared laser beam. This eliminates the restrictions of magnetic traps for further studies of atom lasers and Bose-Einstein condensates. More than $5\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{6}$ condensed atoms were transferred into the optical trap. Densities of up to $3\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{15}{\mathrm{cm}}^{\ensuremath{-}3}$ of Bose condensed atoms were obtained, allowing for a measurement of the three-body loss rate constant for sodium condensates as ${K}_{3}\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}=\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}1.1(3)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}30}{\mathrm{cm}}^{6}{\mathrm{s}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$. At lower densities, the observed 1/e1/e1/e lifetime was longer than 10 s. Simultaneous confinement of Bose-Einstein condensates in several hyperfine states was demonstrated.
Summary form only given. Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) are generally produced by evaporative cooling of laser cooled atomic samples in magnetic traps. Though magnetic traps are indispensable for the production of a BEC, they pose restrictions on the possible studies with a BEC. Previous experiments of our group have demonstrated that it is possible to trap a BEC in the circular focus of a far-detuned infrared laser beam. This first realization of an optical dipole trap (ODT) for BEC was used to prepare and investigate spinor condensates of Na atoms in the F=1 hyperfine manifold. However, the initial peak density in this ODT after loading from the magnetic trap reached 10/sup 15/ atoms/cm/sup 3/, leading to rapid losses due to three-body collisions. To realize an ODT capable of storing large condensates for a long time, we have used a laser beam with an elliptical beam profile. The optical trap is loaded by superimposing the light field onto the magnetic trap and then slowly turning off the magnetic fields. The transfer efficiency is close to 100%, and thus more than 10/sup 7/ Bose-condensed atoms can be loaded into the ODT.
We demonstrate an atom laser using all-optical techniques. A Bose-Einstein condensate of rubidium atoms is created by direct evaporative cooling in a quasistatic dipole trap realized with a single, tightly focused CO2-laser beam. An applied magnetic field gradient allows the formation of the condensate in a field-insensitive m(F)=0 spin projection only, which suppresses fluctuations of the chemical potential from stray magnetic fields. A collimated and monoenergetic beam of atoms is extracted from the Bose-Einstein condensate by continuously lowering the dipole trapping potential in a controlled way to form a novel type of atom laser.