This thesis reports on the generation of MOT for laser cooling and trapping of Rubidium 87 atoms. Probe-pump technique have been used in Rb gas cell and doppler free absorption peaks has been observed. Peak at the crossover frequency will be locked for laser cooling and repump beams. This locked freuqency used in MOT to trap Rb atoms. The technique of optical molasses is used to cool the atoms and quadrupole magnetic field applied to confine or trap atoms at the center of MOT. Two chambers are constructed for 2D and 3D MOT with different pressure. Rb atoms loaded efficiently from the high flux cold atom beam generated in a compact 2D MOT. This is the first step of Bose Einstein Condensate (BEC). A performance of 2D MOT was tested by another main chamber of 3D MOT contains 3 pairs of counter-propagating beams. Over 5x10⁶ atoms trapped in a 3D MOT with loading rate of 1:8x10⁶ atoms/sec. This experiment provided an excellent starting point for future experiment on Rydberg atoms in dense ultracold quantum gases.
This thesis reports on the generation of MOT for laser cooling and trapping of Rubidium 87 atoms. Probe-pump technique have been used in Rb gas cell and doppler free absorption peaks has been observed. Peak at the crossover frequency will be locked for laser cooling and repump beams. This locked freuqency used in MOT to trap Rb atoms. The technique of optical molasses is used to cool the atoms and quadrupole magnetic field applied to confine or trap atoms at the center of MOT. Two chambers are constructed for 2D and 3D MOT with different pressure. Rb atoms loaded efficiently from the high flux cold atom beam generated in a compact 2D MOT. This is the first step of Bose Einstein Condensate (BEC). A performance of 2D MOT was tested by another main chamber of 3D MOT contains 3 pairs of counter-propagating beams. Over 5x10⁶ atoms trapped in a 3D MOT with loading rate of 1:8x10⁶ atoms/sec. This experiment provided an excellent starting point for future experiment on Rydberg atoms in dense ultracold quantum gases.
A rapid atomic beam of rubidium (87Rb) is produced by two-dimensional magneto-optical trap (2D MOT), and then trapped by three-dimensional magneto-optical trap (3D MOT) with high vacuum for further cooling. After a process of optical molasses cooling, atoms are reloaded into a magnetic trap, where radio frequency (RF) evaporation cooling is implemented. The precooled atoms in the magnetic trap are then transferred into a far detuning optical dipole trap, where Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) appears by further evaporation cooling. The 3D MOT is loaded to its maximum within 25 s and then BEC is prepared in 16 s. Due to the linear intensity of magnetic trap, the frequency can be scanned fast in the RF evaporation cooling process. In our experiment, the frequency scans from 39 MHz to 15 MHz in 6 s and then scans to 2 MHz in 5 s. The number of atoms in 3D MOT is about 11010, and there are 5105 atoms in the BEC after a succession of cooling processes. To optimize the performances of 2D MOT, a special light path is constructed. And prisms with high reflectivity are used to reduce the imbalance between opposite propagating cooling +beams. Furthermore, quarter-wave plates are used to keep the polarization state of the cooling beam when reflected by prisms or mirrors. The atoms are cooled to a temperature about 15 K in the magnetic trap by RF evaporation. In such a low temperature, the loss of magnetic trap (Majorana loss) will prevent the atoms from reaching a high density, and the atoms cannot be cooled further. To reduce the loss rate of the magnetic trap, the far blue detuning light (532 nm, 18 W) is added to plug the zero point of the magnetic trap. In the optically plugged magnetic trap, atoms with high density are cooled down enough, which gives a good start for the loading of optical dipole trap.
This thesis describes the design, construction and optimisation of two compact \nsetups to produce ⁸⁷Rb Bose-Einstein condensates and dual ⁷Li-⁸⁷Rb Magneto-Optical Traps (MOTs). The motivation for compact systems is to have simplified \nsystems to cool the atoms. The first experimental setup is based on a single pyrex \nglass cell without the need for atom chips. Fast evaporation will be achieved in a hybrid trap comprising of a magnetic quadrupole trap and an optical dipole trap \ncreated by a Nd:YVO4 laser and with future plans of using a Spatial Light Modulator \n(SLM). To enhance an efficient and rapid evaporation, we have investigated Light-Induced Atomic Desorption (LIAD) to modulate the Rb partial pressure during the cooling and trapping stage. With this technique, a ⁸⁷Rb MOT of 7 x 10⁷ atoms was loaded by shining violet light from a LED source into the glass cell, whose walls are coated with rubidium atoms. The atoms were then cooled by optical molasses and then loaded into a magnetic trap where lifetime measurements demonstrated that LIAD improves on magnetically-trapped atoms loaded from constant background pressure by a factor of six. This is quite encouraging and opens the possibility to do a rapid evaporation. In a second experiment, we have designed a compact system based on a stainless steel chamber to trap either ⁷Li or ⁶Li atoms in a MOT loaded from alkali-metal dispensers without the need of conventional oven-Zeeman slower. This setup can also load ⁸⁷Rb atoms, allowing future projects to simultaneously produce degenerate quantum gases of bosonic ⁸⁷Rb and fermionic ⁶Li atoms.
We describe our high-performance experimental apparatus for producing large atom number 87Rb Bose-Einstein condensates by using a double magneto-optical trap (MOT) system that consists of a two-dimensional MOT (2D MOT) and a three-dimensional MOT (3D MOT). As an atomic beam source for loading the 3D MOT, we use a unique 2D MOT system with two-color pushing beams, which increase the loading rate and the total number of atoms in the 3D MOT, compared to a pure 2D MOT by a factor of 20. After MOT compression and polarization gradient cooling, atoms are optically pumped into a magnetically trappable hyperfine state |F = 1, m F = −1〉 to be loaded into a quadrupole-Ioffe-configuration (QUIC) trap. We enhance this optical pumping process by up to 300% by using two laser beams. After rf evaporative cooling, a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) with more than 2 × 107 atoms is achieved.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: A Magneto Optical Trap (MOT) is a configuration formed by three orthogonal pairs of counterpropagating circularly polarized laser beams and a magnetic field gradient. A MOT is used to cool, capture and trap large numbers of atoms in vacuum at very low temperature in K range. In this thesis the development of an experimental setup for realising a MOT of 87Rb atoms is presented. The atomic structure of Rb and the theoretical background of laser cooling and magneto optical trapping was reviewed. The influence of rubidium background pressure in the vacuum system, the laser beam size and the power and frequency on the number of the trapped atoms were studied in literature. The trapping and repumping lasers were characterised experimentally. Six circularly polarised trapping beams with equal power were formed and properly aligned to intersect at the center of the trapping cell. Two optical setups were designed and exploited to investigate and optimise the trapping beam polarisation. The repumping laser beam was successfully aligned and colinearly combined into all the trapping beams. Three different experimental setups for saturated absorption spectroscopy were developed. Saturated absorption spectra showing the hyperfine structure of both 85Rb and 87Rb isotopes were measured and are discussed. Using two saturated absorption spectroscopy setups, the frequencies of both lasers were successfully locked to the trapping and repumping transitions of 87Rb respectively. A rectangular trapping cell was designed and attached to the vacuum system. A pressure of about 10¯7 mbar was achieved. The magnetic field coils were characterised and affixed on both sides of the cell in an anti-Helmholtz configuration. Setups for imaging and quantification of the 87Rb atoms in the MOT were designed. Finally, the procedures for demonstrating a MOT are presented. In conclusion, the current status of the project is reported, with recommendations for the future work.
Integrating two chemically distinct atomic species into a miniaturized, high-flux cold-atom source is a key challenge for modern experiments with ultracold atomic mixtures and polar molecules. Here, we report a compact setup with in-series two-dimensional magneto-optical traps (2D MOTs) that provides high-flux cold lithium and rubidium atoms. Thanks to the efficient short-distance Zeeman slowing, the maximum 3D MOT loading rate of lithium atoms reaches a record value of 6.6 × 10 9 atoms/s at a moderate lithium-oven temperature of 372 degrees Celsius, which is 44 times higher than that without the Zeeman slowing light. The flux of rubidium is also as high as 2.3 × 10 9 atoms/s with the rubidium oven held at room temperature. Meanwhile, the entire vacuum-chamber system, including an ultra-high-vacuum science cell, is within a small volume of 65 × 55 × 70 cm 3 . Our work represents a substantial improvement over traditional bulky and complex dual-species cold-atom setups. It provides a good starting point for the fast production of a double-degenerate lithium-rubidium atomic mixture and large samples of ultracold lithium-rubidium ground-state molecules.
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.