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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

Experiments with strontium in a vapor cell magneto-optic trap

Kurt R. Vogel, T. Dinneen, Alan C. Gallagher, J. L. Hall

Published May 15, 1998• 8 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In a ceramic vapor cell we have created a robust Sr magneto- optical trap that stores about 108 atoms with lifetimes > 200 ms. We eliminate the 5p 1P1 yields 4d1D2 yields 5p 3P2 leak and achieve a 10-fold improvement in trap lifetime by re-pumping the 5p 3P0,2 dark states with 679 nm and 707 nm light. The observed lifetime is now limited by cold collision losses, and we have preliminary measurements of the 2-body loss rate. Direct readout of the trap velocity distribution is possible using the narrow 5s2 1S0 yields 5p 3P1 intercombination line at 689 nm. We can also cool with this narrow transition and have achieved a 40-fold 1D velocity compression for about 5 percent of the trapped atoms by applying this second-stage cooling.

DOI
10.1117/12.308365

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arXiv:2302.02992•Physical Review Applied•Jun 5, 2023•15 citations
In a ceramic vapor cell we have created a robust Sr magneto- optical trap that stores about 108 atoms with lifetimes > 200 ms. We eliminate the 5p 1P1 yields 4d1D2 yields 5p 3P2 leak and achieve a 10-fold improvement in trap lifetime by re-pumping the 5p 3P0,2 dark states with 679 nm and 707 nm light. The observed lifetime is now limited by cold collision losses, and we have preliminary measurements of the 2-body loss rate. Direct readout of the trap velocity distribution is possible using the narrow 5s2 1S0 yields 5p 3P1 intercombination line at 689 nm. We can also cool with this narrow transition and have achieved a 40-fold 1D velocity compression for about 5 percent of the trapped atoms by applying this second-stage cooling.
ABSTRACT In a ceramic vapor cell we have created a robust Sr magneto-optical trap that stores about 108 atoms with lifetimes>200 ms. We eliminate the 5p 1P1—4d 1D2—*5p 3P2 leak and achieve a 10-fold improvement in trap lifetime byrepumping the 5p 3Po,2 dark states with 679 nm and 707 nm light. The observed lifetime is now limited by coldcollision losses, and we have preliminary measurements of the 2-body loss rate. Direct readout of the trap velocity distribution is possible using the narrow (7 kHz) 52 'S0----5p 3P1 intercombination line at 689 nm. We can also cool with this narrow transition and have achieved a 40-fold 1-D velocity compression for about 5% of the trapped atoms by applying this second-stage cooling. Keywords: Laser cooling, laser trapping, alkaline earths, cold collisions, frequency metrology 1. INTRODUCTION Laser cooling and trapping techniques have advanced to become an important tool of the atomic physics community, and in recent years there has been considerable interest in expanding the range of trapped elements. The alkalineearths, in particular, possess unique characteristics which make them interesting to trap. Studies of long-rangeatom-atom interactions are simplified because they have no hyperfine structure, and their narrow intercombinationtransitions make them excellent candidates for optical frequency standards. Furthermore, Doppler cooling with thesenarrow transitions can reduce temperatures to near the recoil limit.The most abundant alkaline earth isotopes have I =
The presence of ultra-narrow inter-combination spectroscopic lines in alkaline earth elements places them as promising candidates for optical atomic clocks, quantum computation, and for probing fundmental physics. Doppler cooling of these atoms is typically achieved through two subsequent stages: the initial cooling is on the 1s0-1p1 transition followed by cooling using the narrow-line 1s0-3p1 transition. However, due to significantly lower linewidth of the second stage cooling transition, efficient transfer of atoms into the second stage becomes technically challenging. The velocity distribution of the atoms after the first stage of cooling is too broad for atoms to be captured efficiently in the second stage cooling. As a result, the capture efficiency of atoms into the second stage Magneto-Optical Trap is low, even if the linewidth of the second stage cooling laser is artificially broadened.
About 2/spl times/10/sup 7/ neutral strontium atoms have been loaded into a magneto-optical trap (MOT) that uses the narrow (/spl Gamma/=2/spl pi/ 7 kHz) intercombination line at 689 nm as the cycling transition. The atoms are second-stage laser cooled to /spl sim/10 /spl mu/K from an initial 5 mK atomic sample (/spl sim/5/spl times/10/sup 7/ atoms), generated in a vapor cell MOT that employs the strong (/spl Gamma/=2/spl pi/ 32 MHz) cycling transition at 461 nm. To demonstrate the low temperatures of these atoms, optical Ramsey spectroscopy is performed upon the /sup 1/S/sub 0/-/sup 3/P/sub 1/ transition using only two excitation pulses; the time dependence of the fringe contrast indicates an RMS velocity of 3 cm/s for the 689 nm MOT-cooled sample.
Abstract We outline an experimental setup for efficiently preparing a tweezer array of 88Sr atoms. Our setup uses permanent magnets to maintain a steady-state two-dimensional magneto-optical trap (MOT) which results in a loading rate of up to 108 s−1 at 5 mK for the three-dimensional blue MOT. This enables us to trap 2 × 106 88Sr atoms at 2 μK in a narrow-line red MOT with the 1S0 → 3P1 intercombination transition at 689 nm. With the Sisyphus cooling and pairwise loss processes, single atoms are trapped and imaged in 813 nm optical tweezers, exhibiting a lifetime of 2.5 min. We further investigate the survival fraction of a single atom in the tweezers and characterize the optical tweezer array using a release and recapture technique. Our experimental setup serves as an excellent reference for those engaged in experiments involving optical tweezer arrays, cold atom systems, and similar research.
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.
We present a scheme to enhance the atom number in magneto-optical traps of strontium atoms operating on the 461-nm transition. This scheme consists of resonantly driving the ${}^{1}{\mathrm{S}}_{0}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{}^{3}{\mathrm{P}}_{1}$ intercombination line at 689 nm, which continuously populates a short-lived reservoir state and, as expected from a theoretical model, partially shields the atomic cloud from losses arising in the 461-nm cooling cycle. We show a factor of 2 enhancement in the atom number for the bosonic isotopes 88Sr{}^{88}\mathrm{Sr}88Sr and 84Sr{}^{84}\mathrm{Sr}84Sr, and the fermionic isotope 87Sr{}^{87}\mathrm{Sr}87Sr, in good agreement with our model. Our scheme can be applied in the majority of strontium experiments without increasing the experimental complexity of the apparatus, since the employed 689-nm transition is commonly used for further cooling. Our method should thus be beneficial to a broad range of quantum science and technology applications exploiting cold strontium atoms, and could be extended to other atomic species.