Magneto-optical trap for neutral mercury atoms

Kang-kang, Liu, Ru-Chen +13 more

Patrick Villwock, Sebastian Siol, Thomas Walther

B. N. Jagatap, K. G. Manohar, Sanjay G. Nakhate +2 more

Hongli Liu, Shiqi Yin, Kangkang Liu +4 more

Due to its low sensitivity to blackbody radiation, neutral mercury is a good candidate for the most accurate optical lattice clock. Here we report the observation of cold mercury atoms in a magneto-optical trap (MOT). Because of the high vapor pressure at room temperature, the mercury source and the cold pump were cooled down to −40 °C and −70 °C, respectively, to keep the science chamber in an ultra-high vacuum of 6 × 10 −9 Pa. Limited by the power of the UV cooling laser, the one beam folded MOT configuration was adopted, and 1.5 × 10 5 Hg-202 atoms were observed by fluorescence detection.

Patrick Villwock, Sebastian Siol, Thomas Walther

We report on the trapping of mercury in a magneto-optical trap from the background vapor using the 1S0-3P1 intercombination line. Up to (3.2 ± 0.3) × 106 202Hg-atoms have been captured at a density of (4.8 ± 1.4) × 1010 atoms/cm3.

Jeffrey A. Grover, J. Lee, Luis A. Orozco +1 more