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Physical Review Letters

Laser Cooling and Magnetic Trapping at Several Tesla

Jeffrey R. Guest, Jongsoo Choi, E. Hansis, Alexander P. Povilus, Georg A. Raithel

Published Feb 23, 2005• 20 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Laser cooling and magnetic trapping of (85)Rb atoms have been performed in extremely strong and tunable magnetic fields, extending these techniques to a new regime and setting the stage for a variety of cold atom and plasma experiments. Using a superconducting Ioffe-Pritchard trap and an optical molasses, 2.4 x 10(7) atoms were laser cooled to the Doppler limit and magnetically trapped at bias fields up to 2.9 T. At magnetic fields up to 6 T, 3 x 10(6) cold atoms were laser cooled in a pulsed loading scheme. These bias fields are well beyond an order of magnitude larger than those in previous experiments. Loading rates, molasses lifetimes, magnetic-trapping times, and temperatures were measured using photoionization and electron detection.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.94.073003

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We describe cooling and trapping of both 85{}^{85}85Rb and 87{}^{87}87Rb in a range of magnetic fields up to 2.6 T. Atoms are injected from a low-field pyramidal magneto-optical trap and recaptured in a high-magnetic-field atom trap. The atoms are cooled and trapped by a six-beam optical molasses via the 5S1/2∣mI,mJ=5{S}_{1/2}|{m}_{I},{m}_{J}=5S1/2​∣mI​,mJ​= 1/2$\ensuremath{\rangle}$$\ensuremath{\rightarrow}$ 5P3/2∣mI,mJ=5{P}_{3/2}|{m}_{I},{m}_{J}=5P3/2​∣mI​,mJ​= 3/2$\ensuremath{\rangle}$ transition (mI={m}_{I}=mI​= 5/2 for 85{}^{85}85Rb and mI={m}_{I}=mI​= 3/2 for 87{}^{87}87Rb). We study the trap fluorescence spectra, atom temperatures, density distributions, and lifetimes as a function of magnetic field and detuning parameters. The trap fluorescence spectra are both narrow and asymmetric, as is characteristic for laser cooling of atoms in an external trapping potential. The trap is modeled using a Monte Carlo trajectory simulation technique.
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The main goal of this research is to cool potassium-41 atoms to ultracold temperatures (<10 μK) in order to study the spin dynamics of atom to atom interactions. However, our current goal is to finish constructing the apparatus that will allow us to confine and cool these atoms in three dimensions. This apparatus will cool and confine the potassium atoms in 3 steps. First, the atoms will be cooled and trapped in our 3D magneto-optical trap. This step of the experiment will cool the atoms near the Doppler-cooling limit, which for potassium atoms is 145 μK. Second, atoms will be loaded into a FORT (far off resonance trap) with an expected depth of 25 μK. In order to cool the atoms below the Doppler-cooling limit, we will use sub-Doppler cooling techniques. What is particularly unique about our experiment is that we plan to use an octupole magnetic field to achieve sub-Doppler cooling. In typical laser cooling experiments sub-Doppler temperatures are achieved when the quadrupole magnetic field is off, which leaves the atoms untrapped. Third, once the atoms have been loaded into the FORT one last cooling mechanism will be implemented. This mechanism is referred to as evaporative cooling and will cool the atoms below 10 μK.
We demonstrate experimentally the continuous and pulsed loading of a slow and cold atomic beam into a magnetic guide. The slow beam is produced using a vapor loaded laser trap, which ensures two-dimensional magneto-optical trapping, as well as cooling by a moving molasses along the third direction. It provides a continuous flux larger than 10910^9109 atoms/s with an adjustable mean velocity ranging from 0.3 to 3 m/s, and with longitudinal and transverse temperatures smaller than 100μ100 \mu100μK. Up to 31083 10^83108 atoms/s are injected into the magnetic guide and subsequently guided over a distance of 40 cm.