Laser Cooling and Trapping of Alkaline Earths. II.

Christopher W. Oates, F. Bondu, H Hollberg

Josh W. Dunn, Chris H. Greene

Thomas Lindvall, Thomas Fordell, Ilkka Juhani Tittonen +2 more

Julian Pick, R. Schwarz, J. Kruse +2 more

At present, the best optical lattice clocks are based on the spectroscopy of trapped alkaline-earth-like atoms such as ytterbium and strontium. The development of mobile or even space-borne clocks necessitates concepts for the compact laser-cooling and trapping of these atoms with reduced laser requirements. Here, we present two compact and robust achromatic mirror structures for single-beam magneto-optical trapping of alkaline-earth-like atoms using two widely separated optical cooling frequencies. We have compared the trapping and cooling performance of a monolithic aluminum structure that generates a conventional trap geometry to a quasi-planar platform based on a periodic mirror structure for different isotopes of Yb. Compared to prior work with strontium in non-conventional traps, where only bosons were trapped on a narrow line transition, we demonstrate two-stage cooling and trapping of a fermionic alkaline-earth-like isotope in a single-beam quasi-planar structure.

Sebastian Kraft, Felix Vogt, Oliver Appel +2 more

We have achieved Bose-Einstein condensation of ;{40}Ca, the first for an alkaline earth element. The influence of elastic and inelastic collisions associated with the large ground-state s-wave scattering length of ;{40}Ca was measured. From these findings, an optimized loading and cooling scheme was developed that allowed us to condense about 2 x 10;{4} atoms after laser cooling in a two-stage magneto-optical trap and subsequent forced evaporation in a crossed dipole trap within less than 3 s. The condensation of an alkaline earth element opens novel opportunities for precision measurements on the narrow intercombination lines as well as investigations of molecular states at the ;{1}S-;{3}P asymptotes.

Claude N. Cohen-Tannoudji