Progress towards a continuous atom laser

Stéphanie Krins, Marc P. Georges, Thierry Bastin

Tilman Pfau

Since the first experiments on Bose-Einstein condensates, researchers have tried to use them to make atom lasers. But although pulsed lasers have been demonstrated, continuous atom laser operation has been elusive. In his Perspective, [Pfau][1] highlights the report by [ Chikkatur et al .][2], who have overcome the problem with a conceptually simple but technically challenging apparatus. The challenge now is to develop high power atom lasers. [1]: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/296/5576/2155 [2]: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/296/5576/2193

David Guéry-Odelin

Chun-Chia Chen, Shayne Bennetts, Rodrigo González Escudero +2 more

Zhijing Niu, Vera M. Schäfer, Julia Cline +3 more

We demonstrate continuous loading of strontium atoms into a high finesse ring cavity and observe continuous strong collective coupling in the form of a vacuum Rabi splitting between the atoms and the cavity on the 7.5 kHz 1S0 to 3P1 transition.

Nicholas P. Robins, Craig M. Savage, Elena A. Ostrovskaya