We describe a Zeeman slowing method reported in [New J. Phys. 20, 042001 (2018)] and compare it to conventional radiative beam-slowing schemes. The scheme is designed to work on a type-II level structure, making it particularly attractive for radiative beam slowing of molecules. Working on the
D1 line of atomic
39K, we demonstrate efficient slowing of an atomic beam from $400\phantom{\rule{4pt}{0ex}}\mathrm{m}\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}{\mathrm{s}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ down to $35\phantom{\rule{4pt}{0ex}}\mathrm{m}\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}{\mathrm{s}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ with a final flux of $3.3\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{9}\phantom{\rule{4pt}{0ex}}{\mathrm{cm}}^{\ensuremath{-}2}\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}{\mathrm{s}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$. We give experimental details and compare our results to other established radiative slowing schemes in atomic and molecular physics. We find type-II Zeeman slowing to outperform white-light slowing commonly used in molecular beam slowing and to be comparably as efficient as traditional type-I Zeeman slowing being the standard beam-slowing technique in atomic physics.
We report on magneto-optical trapping of fermionic
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
P state into metastable
D 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 atoms in this magnetic trap. We also report on the simultaneous magneto-optical trapping of bosonic
52Cr and fermionic
53Cr atoms. Finally, we characterize the light-assisted collision losses in this Bose-Fermi cold mixture.