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Chinese Physics B

A cold 87 Rb atomic beam

Xiao-Jia Wang, Yanying Feng, Hongbo Xue, Zhaoying Zhou, Wendong Zhang

Published Dec 1, 2011• 6 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We demonstrate an experimental setup for the production of a beam source of cold 87Rb atoms. The atoms are extracted from a trapped cold atomic cloud in an unbalanced three-dimensional magneto—optical trap. Via a radiation pressure difference generated by a specially designed leak tunnel along one trapping laser beam, the atoms are pushed out continuously with low velocities and a high flux. The most-probable velocity in the beam is varied from 9 m/s to 19 m/s by varying the detuning of the trapping laser beams in the magneto—optical trap and the flux can be tuned up to 4×109 s−1 by increasing the intensity of the trapping beams. We also present a simple model for describing the dependence of the beam performance on the magneto—optical trap trapping laser intensity and the detuning.

DOI
10.1088/1674-1056/20/12/126701

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We demonstrate an experimental setup for the production of a beam source of cold 87Rb atoms. The atoms are extracted from a trapped cold atomic cloud in an unbalanced three-dimensional magneto—optical trap. Via a radiation pressure difference generated by a specially designed leak tunnel along one trapping laser beam, the atoms are pushed out continuously with low velocities and a high flux. The most-probable velocity in the beam is varied from 9 m/s to 19 m/s by varying the detuning of the trapping laser beams in the magneto—optical trap and the flux can be tuned up to 4×109 s−1 by increasing the intensity of the trapping beams. We also present a simple model for describing the dependence of the beam performance on the magneto—optical trap trapping laser intensity and the detuning.
We present an experimental set-up for the production of a beam source of cold 87Rb atoms, which is formed from a trapped cold atomic cloud in a three-dimensional (3D) magneto-optical trap (MOT). Via a radiation pressure difference generated by a specially designed leak tunnel along one trapping laser beam, the atoms are pushed out continuously with low velocity and high flux. The beam was measured to have a mean velocity of 12m/s and a longitudinal velocity spread of about 3m/s under nominal experimental conditions, based on the fluorescence and the time of flight (TOF) technologies. And its flux can be tuned by adjusting the MOT parameters from 108 to 109 atoms/s. Especially the beam performance dependence on trapping laser detuning and power is experimentally studied.
We present a two-dimensional (2D) magneto-optical trap (MOT) setup for the production of a continuous collimated beam of cold 87Rb{}^{87}\mathrm{Rb}87Rb atoms out of a vapor cell. The underlying physics is purely two-dimensional cooling and trapping, which allows for a high flux of up to $6\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{10}$ atoms/s and a small divergence of the resulting beam. We analyze the velocity distribution of the 2D MOT. The longitudinal velocity distribution of the atomic beam shows a broad feature (full width at half maximum $\ensuremath{\simeq}75 \mathrm{m}/\mathrm{s}),$ centered around 50 m/s. The dependence of the flux on laser intensity, on geometry of the trapping volume, and on pressure in the vapor cell was investigated in detail. The influence of the geometry of the 2D MOT on the mean velocity of the cold beam has been studied. We present a simple model for the velocity distribution of the flux based on rate equations describing the general features of our source.
We discuss the implementation and characterization of the source of a slow, intense, and collimated beam of rubidium atoms. The cold atomic beam is produced by two-dimensional magneto-optical trapping in directions transverse to the atomic beam axis and unbalanced Doppler cooling in the axial direction. The vacuum design allows use of relatively low laser power and a considerably simplified assembly. The atomic beam has a high flux of about $2\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{10}\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{atoms}∕\mathrm{s}$ at a total cooling laser power of 55mW55\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{mW}55mW. It has a narrow longitudinal velocity distribution with mean velocity 15m∕s15\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{m}∕\mathrm{s}15m∕s with full width at half maximum 3.5m∕s3.5\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{m}∕\mathrm{s}3.5m∕s and has a low divergence of 26mrad26\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{mrad}26mrad. The high flux enables ultrafast loading of about 1010{10}^{10}1010 atoms into a three-dimensional (3D) magneto-optical trap within 500 ms. The variation of the atomic beam flux was studied as a function of the rubidium vapor pressure, cooling laser power, transverse cooling laser beam length, detuning of the cooling laser, and relative intensities of the cooling beams along the atomic beam axis. We also discuss a detailed comparison of our measurements of the cold atomic beam with a 3D numerical simulation.
We present an unbalanced three-dimensional(3D) magneto-optical trap(MOT) setup for the production of a continuous source of cold 87Rb atoms,which is cooled,trapped and pushed out by the MOT-generated radiation pressure difference employing a specially designed leak tunnel along one trapping laser beam.The coherence of the atomic beam is calculated with the velocity and the velocity spread which are obtained from the time-of-flight(TOM) signal.The experimental results show that an 87Rb beam with De Broglie wave length of 0.4 nm and bandwidth of 0.1 nm according to the most probable velocity of 12 m/s and a velocity spread of 3 m/s is generated with this method.And a flux of 108-109 atoms/s can be generated based on the measurement of the photomultiplier tube(PMT) signal from the source.
We present a 2D-MOT setup for the production of a continuous collimated beam of cold 87-Rb atoms out of a vapor cell. The underlying physics is purely two-dimensional cooling and trapping, which allows for a high flux of up to 6*10^(10) atoms/s and a small divergence of the resulting beam. We analyze the velocity distribution of the 2D-MOT. The longitudinal velocity distribution of the atomic beam shows a broad feature(FWHM=75m/s), centered around 50m/s. The dependence of the flux on laser intensity, geometry of the trapping volume and on pressure in the vapor cell was investigated in detail. The influence of the geometry of the 2D-MOT on the mean velocity of the cold beam has been studied. We present a simple model for the velocity distribution of the flux based on rate equations describing the general dependencies.
We present a cold atomic beam source based on a two-dimensional (2D)+ magneto-optical trap (MOT), capable of generating a continuous cold beam of 87Rb atoms with a flux up to 4.3*10^9 atoms/s, a mean velocity of 10.96(2.20) m/s, and a transverse temperature of 16.90(1.56) uK. Investigating the influence of high cooling laser intensity, we observe a significant population loss of atoms to hyperfine-level dark states. To account for this, we employ a multiple hyperfine level model to calculate the cooling efficiency associated with the population in dark states, subsequently modifying the scattering force. Simulations of beam flux at different cooling and repumping laser intensities using the modified scattering force are in agreement with experimental results. Optimizing repumping and cooling intensities enhances the flux by 50%. The influence of phase modulation on both the pushing and cooling lasers is experimentally studied, revealing that the mean velocity of cold atoms can be tuned from 9.5 m/s to 14.6 m/s with a phase-modulated pushing laser. The versatility of this continuous beam source, featuring high flux, controlled velocity, and narrow transverse temperature, renders it valuable for applications in atom interferometers and clocks, ultimately enhancing bandwidth, sensitivity, and signal contrast in these devices.