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arXiv:1802.05525 · Scientific Reports

A misaligned magneto-optical trap to enable miniaturized atom chip systems

Ritayan Roy, Jo Rushton, Andrei Dragomir, Matthew Aldous, Matthew Himsworth

Published Jun 28, 2018• 3 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Abstract We describe the application of displaced, or misaligned, beams in a mirror-based magneto-optical trap (MOT) to enable portable and miniaturized atom chip experiments where optical access is limited to a single window. Two different geometries of beam displacement are investigated: a variation on the well-known ‘vortex-MOT’, and the other a novel ‘hybrid-MOT’ combining Zeeman-shifted and purely optical scattering force components. The beam geometry is obtained similar to the mirror-MOT, using a planar mirror surface but with a different magnetic field geometry more suited to planar systems. Using these techniques, we have trapped around 6 × 106 and 26 × 106 atoms of 85Rb in the vortex-MOT and hybrid-MOT respectively. For the vortex-MOT the atoms are directly cooled well below the Doppler temperature without any additional sub-Doppler cooling stage, whereas the temperature of the hybrid-MOT has been measured slightly above the Doppler temperature limit. In both cases the attained lower temperature ensures the quantum behaviour of the trapped atoms required for the applications of portable quantum sensors and many others.

DOI
10.1038/s41598-018-28464-0

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Abstract We describe the application of displaced, or misaligned, beams in a mirror-based magneto-optical trap (MOT) to enable portable and miniaturized atom chip experiments where optical access is limited to a single window. Two different geometries of beam displacement are investigated: a variation on the well-known ‘vortex-MOT’, and the other a novel ‘hybrid-MOT’ combining Zeeman-shifted and purely optical scattering force components. The beam geometry is obtained similar to the mirror-MOT, using a planar mirror surface but with a different magnetic field geometry more suited to planar systems. Using these techniques, we have trapped around 6 × 106 and 26 × 106 atoms of 85Rb in the vortex-MOT and hybrid-MOT respectively. For the vortex-MOT the atoms are directly cooled well below the Doppler temperature without any additional sub-Doppler cooling stage, whereas the temperature of the hybrid-MOT has been measured slightly above the Doppler temperature limit. In both cases the attained lower temperature ensures the quantum behaviour of the trapped atoms required for the applications of portable quantum sensors and many others.
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This thesis describes the design and construction of a new magneto optical trap that is suitable for use in integrated atom chips and other vacuum systems in which optical access is limited to a single window. The trap design relies on the switching of optical and magnetic fields and can operate at frequencies at least within the region of 1 kHz to 60 kHz. The design does not need patterned surfaces in order to generate the necessary beam geometry, requiring only the use of a single, standard mirror. Early temperature measurements have indicated that the trap may be capable of sub-Doppler cooling, and that it is able to capture on the order of 1.7 x 106 atoms in a capture volume of 0.18 cm3.
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The magneto-optical trap (MOT) is an essential tool for collecting and preparing cold atoms with a wide range of applications. We demonstrate a planar-integrated MOT by combining an optical grating chip with a magnetic coil chip. The flat grating chip simplifies the conventional six-beam configuration down to a single laser beam, and the flat coil chip replaces the conventional anti-Helmholtz coils of cylindrical geometry. Up to 106{10}^{6}106 cold 87Rb{}^{87}\mathrm{Rb}87Rb atoms are trapped by the planar-integrated MOT, with the atom cloud being approximately 6mm6\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}\mathrm{mm}6mm above the chip surface. This configuration effectively reduces the volume, weight, and complexity of the MOT, bringing benefits to applications including gravimeter, clock, and quantum memory devices.
Abstract Diffraction gratings have simplified the optical implementation of magneto-optical traps (MOTs) to require only a single input beam, however reaching high atom number and fast loading has proven to be a challenge. We equipped an atom chip with a grating surface and paired it with a velocity-tunable 2D+-MOT as an atomic source to facilitate efficient loading together with magnetic trapping. Using uniform grating illumination, we magneto-optically trap 1.0 ( 1 ) × 10 9 atoms within one second, cool them to 14.1 ( 3 ) μ K , and transfer a quarter of them into the magnetic chip trap. This is a key step towards simple portable quantum sensors employing (ultra-)cold atoms.