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Japanese Journal of Applied Physics

Dual Magneto-Optical Trap of Sodium Atoms in Ground Hyperfine F=1 and F=2 States

Hideki Tanaka, Hiromitsu Imai, Katsuki Furuta, Yukihide Kato, Susumu Tashiro, Masayuki Abe, Ryousuke Tajima, Atsuo Morinaga

Published May 18, 2007• 22 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Sodium atoms were trapped in a dual-operation magneto-optical trap using laser light whose frequency was tuned at 18 MHz to the red of the F =2 to F '=3 transition and laser light whose frequency was tuned at 11 MHz to the red of the F =1 to F '=0 transition. The number of trapped atoms increased to 1.2 × 10 10 atoms, which is a sufficient number for producing the Bose–Einstein condensation of a dilute sodium gas. The mechanism for trapping atoms in the F =1 state is discussed.

DOI
10.1143/jjap.46.l492

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Sodium atoms were trapped in a dual-operation magneto-optical trap using laser light whose frequency was tuned at 18 MHz to the red of the F =2 to F '=3 transition and laser light whose frequency was tuned at 11 MHz to the red of the F =1 to F '=0 transition. The number of trapped atoms increased to 1.2 × 10 10 atoms, which is a sufficient number for producing the Bose–Einstein condensation of a dilute sodium gas. The mechanism for trapping atoms in the F =1 state is discussed.
We investigate the loading of a two-color vapor-cell magneto-optical trap for sodium atoms as a function of several operational parameters of the trap. We use two laser frequencies acting in different spatial regions to obtain either enhancement or inhibition of the capture mechanism. We demonstrate that the best enhancement is achieved when the trap operates on a combination of atomic transitions, known as type I tuning, by using a second laser beam to capture atoms through a different combination of transitions (type II tuning).
We report cooling and trapping of 85Rb^{85}\mathrm{Rb}85Rb atoms in the lower hyperfine level F=2F=2F=2 of the 52S1∕25\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}^{2}S_{1∕2}52S1∕2​ ground state in a magneto-optical trap. A maximum of $\ensuremath{\sim}6\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{6}$ atoms could be trapped using trap laser frequency red detuned by 12MHz12\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{MHz}12MHz from the $F=2\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{F}^{\ensuremath{'}}=1$ cycling transition. The loading behavior of the trap in terms of loading rate, collisional loss rate, number and density of trapped atoms was studied as a function of trap laser intensity.
We have investigated the properties of Bose-Einstein condensates of sodium atoms in the upper hyperfine ground state. Condensates in the high-field seeking $|F=2,{m}_{F}=\ensuremath{-}2⟩$ state were created in a large volume optical trap from initially prepared $|F=1,{m}_{F}=\ensuremath{-}1⟩$ condensates using a microwave transition at 1.77 GHz. We found condensates in the stretched state $|F=2,{m}_{F}=\ensuremath{-}2⟩$ to be stable for several seconds at densities in the range of 1014 atoms/cm3{10}^{14}\text{ }\mathrm{\text{atoms}}/{\mathrm{c}\mathrm{m}}^{3}1014 atoms/cm3. In addition, we studied the clock transition $|F=1,{m}_{F}=0⟩\ensuremath{\rightarrow}|F=2,{m}_{F}=0⟩$ in a sodium Bose-Einstein condensate and determined a density-dependent frequency shift of $(2.44\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.25\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.5)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}12}\text{ }\mathrm{H}\mathrm{z}\text{ }{\mathrm{c}\mathrm{m}}^{3}$.
The efficiency of evaporative cooling, which is used for the creation of a Bose-Einstein condensate, depends strongly on the number of particles at the start of the evaporation. A high efficiency can be reached by filling the magneto-optical trap with a large number of atoms and subsequently transferring these atoms to the magnetic trap as efficiently as possible. In our case (for sodium) this efficiency is limited to 1∕31∕31∕3, because the magnetic substates of the F=1F=1F=1 state, which is used in the trapping process, are equally populated. This limit can be overcome by spin-polarizing the sample before the transfer. For sodium atoms, however, the improvement is very small when it is done in a small magnetic field due to the large number of optical transitions in combination with the high optical density. In this paper, we describe spin-polarizing sodium atoms in a high magnetic field. The transfer efficiency is increased by a factor of 2. The high magnetic field makes the process also more robust against variations in the magnetic field, the laser frequency, and the polarization of the laser beam.