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European Quantum Electronics Conference (EQEC)

A combined trap for chromium and rubidium atoms

Axel Griesmaier, S. Hensler, J. Werner, Piet O. Schmidt, Axel Görlitz, T. Pfan

Published Jan 1, 2003• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A new apparatus for simultaneous trapping of chromium and rubidium in spatially and temporally overlapping traps is set up. A beam of chromium atoms is generated by a high temperature effusion cell and decelerated by a Zeeman slower before being loaded into a magneto-optical trap (MOT), whereas the rubidium MOT is loaded from thermal atoms out of a resistively heated getter source. The bosonic isotope (/sup 52/Cr) which is easier to cool is used to test the new approach.

DOI
10.1109/eqec.2003.1314154

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•Jan 24, 2025•0 citations
A new apparatus for simultaneous trapping of chromium and rubidium in spatially and temporally overlapping traps is set up. A beam of chromium atoms is generated by a high temperature effusion cell and decelerated by a Zeeman slower before being loaded into a magneto-optical trap (MOT), whereas the rubidium MOT is loaded from thermal atoms out of a resistively heated getter source. The bosonic isotope (/sup 52/Cr) which is easier to cool is used to test the new approach.
We realize a combined trap for bosonic chromium (52Cr) and rubidium (87Rb) atoms. Initial experiments focus on exploring a suitable loading scheme for the combined trap and on studies of new trap loss mechanisms originating from simultaneous trapping of two species. By comparing the trap loss from the 87Rb magneto-optical trap (MOT) in the absence and presence of magnetically trapped ground state 52Cr atoms we determine the scattering cross-section of σ inel,RbCr = 5.0 ± 4.0 × 10−18 m2 for light-induced inelastic collisions between the two species. Studying the trap loss from the Rb magneto-optical trap induced by the Cr cooling-laser light, the photoionization cross-section of the excited 5P3/1 state at an ionizing wavelength of 426 nm is measured to be σ P = 1.1 ± 0.3 × 10−21 m2.
We report on magneto-optical trapping of fermionic 53Cr^{53}\mathrm{Cr}53Cr atoms. A Zeeman-slowed atomic beam provides loading rates up to $3\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{6}\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}{\mathrm{s}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$. We present systematic characterization of the magneto-optical trap (MOT). We obtain up to $5\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{5}$ atoms in the steady-state MOT. The atoms radiatively decay from the excited PPP state into metastable DDD states, and, due to the large dipolar magnetic moment of chromium atoms in these states, they can remain magnetically trapped in the quadrupole field gradient of the MOT. We study the accumulation of metastable 53Cr^{53}\mathrm{Cr}53Cr atoms in this magnetic trap. We also report on the simultaneous magneto-optical trapping of bosonic 52Cr^{52}\mathrm{Cr}52Cr and fermionic 53Cr^{53}\mathrm{Cr}53Cr atoms. Finally, we characterize the light-assisted collision losses in this Bose-Fermi cold mixture.
We have built an apparatus for setting up a double magneto-optical trap (double MOT) which allows more than 10 Rb atoms to be loaded in 15 seconds. This compact system consists mainly of a stainless steel chamber and a homemade glass cell. The two chambers are spatially separated by a small diameter transfer tube for differential pumping. The stainless steel chamber is maintained at a pressure of 10 Torr, enabling fast capturing of background Rb atoms. The optically cooled atomic clouds are pushed by a laser beam towards the glass cell which is in a much higher vacuum. Under this condition, the glass cell provides a rather long life time for holding the atoms. After the atoms are loaded in the temporarily bright MOT, a semi-dark type MOT compression is employed to reach a spatial density of 1×10 atoms/cm. The compressed atom clouds are further cooled by polarization gradient cooling to a temperature of 30 μK. The high phase space density cloud is suitable for experiments related to ultracold atoms.
Dysprosium is the most magnetic element on the periodic table, which gives it the potential to display exotic physics. To study magnetic interacting atoms, we plan to capture single atoms of Dysprosium in optical tweezers, as done with Rubidium atoms in [1]. The first step is a 3D magneto-optical trap (MOT), which combines the optical molasses technique [2] and spatial-dependent Zeeman splitting [3] to trap a cloud of Dysprosium atoms. The MOT is inside an ultra-high vacuum (UHV) chamber and an effusion cell produces a hot beam of Dysprosium atoms, from which it loads. An amplified external cavity diode laser, locked to an optical reference cavity, generates the 421 nm light that forms the optical molasses. Water-cooled coils in a quadrupole configuration generate the magnetic fields. Our experiment is the first to load the MOT directly in the hot beam, prioritising simplicity over a large MOT population by going without a 2D MOT or Zeeman slower, used in [4] and [5]. This thesis presents our design and implementation of the simple Dysprosium MOT, shown in Fig. 1. We also show the characteristics of the MOT and atomic source. The simplification of the Dysprosium MOT is twofold: it does not require frequency doubling setups to generate the laser light [5,6] and the aforementioned pre-cooling stages [5,7]. Simplifying this process allows more laboratories worldwide to implement Dysprosium trapping and further our understanding of its exotic physics.