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AIP conference proceedings

Laser cooling of strontium atoms toward quantum degeneracy

Hidetoshi Katori

Published Jan 1, 2001• 12 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We report on a narrow-line laser cooling and trapping of strontium atoms near quantum degeneracy. Employing a magneto-optical trap (MOT) on the spin-forbidden transition 1S0−3P1 at 689 nm, we have laser-cooled an atomic sample down to the photon recoil temperature of 400 nK with a phase space density of 10−2. The atoms were then compressed into a new type of far-off resonance optical dipole trap that was designed to allow simultaneous Doppler cooling, resulting in a phase space density of 10% to that required for quantum degeneracy. It is shown that this value is finally limited by light-assisted collisions occurring in the optical cooling. To reduce these inelastic losses, we applied evaporative cooling and demonstrated a creation of two-dimensional atomic gases.

DOI
10.1063/1.1354362

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Journal of Physics Conference Series•Sep 1, 2007•12 citations
We report on a narrow-line laser cooling and trapping of strontium atoms near quantum degeneracy. Employing a magneto-optical trap (MOT) on the spin-forbidden transition 1S0−3P1 at 689 nm, we have laser-cooled an atomic sample down to the photon recoil temperature of 400 nK with a phase space density of 10−2. The atoms were then compressed into a new type of far-off resonance optical dipole trap that was designed to allow simultaneous Doppler cooling, resulting in a phase space density of 10% to that required for quantum degeneracy. It is shown that this value is finally limited by light-assisted collisions occurring in the optical cooling. To reduce these inelastic losses, we applied evaporative cooling and demonstrated a creation of two-dimensional atomic gases.
Summary form only given. All-optical production of quantum degenerate atomic gases has been one of the long-standing targets in laser cooling. We report a novel approach towards this direction based on a narrow-line laser cooling for strontium atoms. By employing two transitions with markedly different dipole moments, i.e., the allowed /sup 1/S/sub 0/-/sup 1/P/sub 1/ (/spl lambda/=461 nm, /spl gamma/=2/spl pi//spl times/32 MHz) and the spin-forbidden /sup 1/S/sub 0/-/sup 3/P/sub 1/ (/spl lambda/=689 nm, /spl gamma/=2/spl pi//spl times/7.6 kHz) transition, thermal strontium atoms were Doppler-cooled down to 400 nK or the photon recoil temperature, in a magneto-optical trap (MOT). Presents the corresponding energy levels for cooling and trapping. The use of a narrow spin-forbidden transition successfully reduced the radiation trapping effects at a high atom density over 10/sup 12//cm/sup 3/, thus enabling us to attain the hitherto high phase space density of 0.01 in a MOT.
Employing a far-off resonance optical-dipole trap (FORT), we attained a phase-space density exceeding 0.1, or an order to quantum degeneracy. Strontium atoms were magneto-optically cooled and trapped using the spin-forbidden ${}^{1}{S}_{0}{\ensuremath{-}}^{3}{P}_{1}$ transition and then compressed into a FORT that was designed to allow simultaneous Doppler cooling. We discussed that the phase-space density was finally limited by the light-assisted collisions occurring in the optical cooling.
We report narrow-line laser cooling and trapping of strontium atoms down to the photon recoil temperature. 88Sr{}^{88}\mathrm{Sr}88Sr atoms precooled by the broad $^{1}S_{0}\ensuremath{-}^{1}P_{1}$ transition at 461 nm were further cooled in a magneto-optical trap using the spin-forbidden transition $^{1}S_{0}\ensuremath{-}^{3}P_{1}$ at 689 nm. We have thus obtained an atomic sample with a density over ${10}^{12}\mathrm{cm}{}^{\ensuremath{-}3}$ and a minimum temperature of 400 nK, corresponding to a maximum phase space density of ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}2}$ which is 3 orders of magnitude larger than the value that has been obtained by magneto-optical traps to date. This scheme provides us an opportunity and system to study quantum statistical properties of degenerate fermions as well as bosons.
We propose and demonstrate a novel far-off-resonance optical dipole trap (FORT) that is compatible with Doppler cooling. Strontium atoms are magneto-optically cooled and trapped by the spin-forbidden transition 1 S 0 - 3 P 1 at 689 nm, while the tight-focused infrared laser couples these two states to the respective dipole-allowed singlet and triplet states to generate the same amount of light shift. These designed light shifts for the cooling transition, enabling simultaneous Doppler cooling and dipole trapping, lead to the efficient loading of cooled atoms into the FORT with a few recoil energies. This scheme provides an important step towards the realization of quantum degenerate strontium atoms by purely optical means.
Laser cooling has become a powerful tool for producing quantum gases and has enabled the study of a wide range of phenomena only accessible at ultracold temperatures. This thesis will describe the implementation and characterization of a magneto-optical trap (MOT) for laser cooling strontium to microkelvin temperatures operating on the narrow 689nm transition (the “red” MOT). The red MOT is the second cooling stage required to create quantum degenerate gases of strontium, bridging the temperatures and densities produced by the first cooling stage (the 461 nm “blue” MOT) and the shallow conservative traps for evaporation to quantum degeneracy.
We discuss our experimental results on forced evaporative cooling of cold rubidium 87 Rb atoms to quantum degeneracy in an Optical Dipole Trap. The atoms are first trapped and cooled in a magneto-optical trap (MOT) loaded from a continuous beam of cold atoms [1]. More than 10 10 atoms are trapped in the MOT and then about 10 8 atoms are transferred to a Quasi-Electrostatic Trap (QUEST) formed by tightly focused CO2 laser (λ = 10.6μ m ) beams intersecting at their foci in an orthogonal configuration in the horizontal plane. Before loading the atoms into the dipole trap, the phase-space density of the atomic ensemble was increased making use of sub-doppler cooling at large detuning and the temporal dark MOT technique. In a MOT the phase-space density of the atomic ensemble is six orders of magnitude less than what is required to achieve quantum degeneracy. After transferring atoms into the dipole trap efficiently, phase-space density increases by a factor of 10 3 . Further increase in phase-space density to quantum degeneracy is achieved by forced evaporative cooling of atoms in the dipole trap. The evaporative cooling process involves a gradual reduction of the trap depth by ramping down the trapping laser intensity over a second. The temperature of the cold atomic cloud was measured by time-of-flight (TOF) technique. The spatial distribution of the atoms is measured using absorption imaging. We report results of evaporative cooling in a single beam and in a crossed double-beam dipole traps. Due to the large initial phase space density, and large initial number of atoms trapped, the quantum phase transition occurs after about 600 ms of evaporative cooling in our optimized crossed dipole trap.