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Systems for the radiative trapping of lithium and the tuning of its interactions via magnetic field control

C. Welford

Published Jan 1, 2008• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

An all diode laser system has been constructed for the confinement of 7 Li in a magneto-optical trap (MOT), which is the first stage in a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) experiment. The system is based around an anti-reflection coated broad-area laser which provides the MOT power. The system allows the production of a MOT containing 1.6×10 10 atoms at 600 μK and densities in excess of 2×10 11 atoms/cm 3 . In addition, a magnetic field control system has been implemented using feedback from an Ultrastab 866 current sensor. The system provides a fractional current stability of 1 part in 10 4 —a factor of four improvement over the previous scheme where the current limit of the supply was relied upon for stability.

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An all diode laser system has been constructed for the confinement of 7 Li in a magneto-optical trap (MOT), which is the first stage in a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) experiment. The system is based around an anti-reflection coated broad-area laser which provides the MOT power. The system allows the production of a MOT containing 1.6×10 10 atoms at 600 μK and densities in excess of 2×10 11 atoms/cm 3 . In addition, a magnetic field control system has been implemented using feedback from an Ultrastab 866 current sensor. The system provides a fractional current stability of 1 part in 10 4 —a factor of four improvement over the previous scheme where the current limit of the supply was relied upon for stability.
This thesis reports on the construction of an apparatus capable of producing a molecular Bose-Einstein-Condensate (BEC) of 6Li2. To create a condensate fermionic lithium is first evaporated in an oven, slowed by a Zeeman slower and captured in a magneto-optical-trap (MOT). A scheme for creating time-averaged arbitrary optical potentials for optimized transfer of the atoms from the MOT to a high-power, far detuned optical dipole trap was implemented, as well as magnetic field coils to tune the interactions of the atoms via Feshbach resonances. The first experiments with the new machine include the characterization of the optical dipole trap and evaporative cooling of 6Li.
We present a slave laser highly suitable for the preparation and detection of 87Rb Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC). A highly anti-reflection coated laser diode serves as an optical amplifier, which requires neither active temperature stabilization nor dedicated equipment monitoring the spectral purity of the amplified light. The laser power can be controlled with a precision of 10 μW in 70 mW with relative fluctuations down to 2 × 10−4. Due to its simplicity and reliability, this slave laser will be a useful tool for laboratory, mobile, or even space-based cold-atom experiments. By the way of demonstration this slave laser was used as the sole 780 nm light-source in the production of 3 × 104 BECs in a hybrid magnetic/dipole trap.
We report fluorescence detection of a single 7 Li atom in a magneto-optical trap (MOT). We use a double MOT system, which allows us to control the loading rate of the second MOT by simply turning on or off the first MOT and to use a modest magnetic field gradient of 46 G/cm. A single atom is trapped for longer than 100 s. The fluorescence from the trapped atoms is imaged onto an electron-multiplying charge-coupled device with a unit magnification factor by a pair of aspheric lenses. The numerical aperture of the objective lens is 0.22 with a collecting efficiency of 1.3%. Accumulated fluorescence is extracted by integrating the signal over a region of interest of 500×350 μ m 2 . For a 200-ms exposure time, the fluorescence count from a single atom is 8.8×10 3 and the background count from scattered MOT beams is 6.8 × 10 4 . We actively stabilize the trap beam power to reduce the noise and the measured noise is two times the statistical noise. Overall signal-to-noise ratio of the single-atom detection is 37/√ Hz. We also describe a modification of the system that is adapted to an experimental configuration for quantum manipulation of single atoms in a 1D optical lattice.
Our goal is the preparation and study of ultra- cold plasma and Rydberg matter. We assembled an ex- perimental setup for laser cooling of lithium atoms in a magneto-optical trap (MOT). Trapping of 7 Li atoms in a MOT is demonstrated for a wide range of cooling laser detunings. The number density of 7 Li atoms at different ground-state sublevels is measured by using a probe tun- able laser. The temperature of the trapped atoms is esti- mated. Obtained information is important for the prepara- tion of ultra-cold plasma and highly-excited atoms. duction of recombination in such systems. Our theoreti- cal works show the appearance of short and long-range order (7) and a large reduction of the recombination rate (a few orders of magnitude) in the ultra-cold mixture of Rydberg atoms and plasma in the presence of a strong magnetic field (8-11). The ability to control the decay and crystallization processes in an ensemble of Rydberg atoms could find an application in quantum storage and quan- tum computers. The suggested experiments can model the behavior of the plasma recombination in experiments on creating anti-hydrogen (12-14), and help to increase the number of ground state anti-hydrogen atoms in a strong magnetic field. It is noteworthy that lithium is an element which is very close to hydrogen.
Ultracold mixture experiments hold the promise of providing new insights into many-body quantum systems as well as ultracold chemistry and few-body phenomena. The work presented in this thesis dealt with the construction of a new apparatus for the production and study of ultracold gases of fermionic lithium-6 and bosonic caesium-133. These isotopes offer a wide tunability in their interaction strength, both in inter-species and intra-species collisions, through magnetic Feshbach resonances. Additionally, the widely different resonance frequencies of lithium and caesium enables independent control of each of the species. With this apparatus, Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) containing 10^4 lithium Feshbach molecules are routinely produced. The cooling system for caesium has been developed in parallel and important steps towards producing ultracold caesium gases have been made. An optical dipole trap has been loaded with 2x10^6 caesium atoms and evaporative cooling towards quantum degeneracy can now be pursued. Laser, vacuum, magnetic and control systems have been developed for the implementation of this experiment. Light produced with this laser system was used to laser cool atoms, create conservative dipole traps as well as to provide means of imaging atomic clouds. Additionally, a system to produce strong magnetic fields of up to 1400 G has been established in order to exploit the wide tunability in the atomic interactions. Software that was developed for the computerised control system facilitated the coordination of all the components involved in the experimental sequence. Measurements and calculations that showcase the functionality of relevant parts of the setup are presented in this thesis. In this experiment, lithium and caesium atoms are obtained from a novel type of Zeeman slower and are loaded into a magneto-optical trap (MOT). The system is capable of doing this independently for each of the atomic species as well as sequentially. After the MOT has been loaded with atoms, they are transferred into a conservative far-off-resonance optical dipole trap. By adjusting the interactions between atoms and lowering the depth of the dipole trap, efficient evaporative cooling of lithium was carried out from which a molecular BEC was obtained. Time-of-flight measurements were used to characterise the condensate and study its expansion dynamics.
This work presents the designing various components of a Magneto-Optical Trap and simulations of ultracold lithium atoms. Key experimental components include a magnetic-field compensator, and RF antenna integrated with a Python-based GUI control system. Complementary simulations model atom dynamics in a harmonic potential and cloud evolution under quenches, outlining pathways toward achieving a Bose–Einstein condensate. Together, these results demonstrate improved stability and efficiency in ultracold atom control.