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arXiv:physics/0107003 · The European Physical Journal D

An intense, slow and cold beam of metastable Ne(3s) 3 P 2 atoms

J. G. C. Tempelaars, R. J. W. Stas, P. G. M. Sebel, Herman C. W. Beijerinck, Edgar J. D. Vredenbregt

Published Jan 1, 2002• 10 citations
arXivHTMLPDF
DOI
10.1140/e10053-002-0013-8

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We have developed a ``beam brightener'' in which several different laser cooling methods produce a highly monochromatic, unidirectional and intense beam of metastable Ne(3s;^3P_2) atoms. The beam brightener consists of four main stages. From an exited neon source we capture in a collimating section 5× 10^11 Ne(3s)/s from which ≈ 50 % is slowed to 100 m/s in a Zeeman slower. The final velocity distribution shows a width of 3.3 m/s uc(RMS,) corresponding to a temperature of 12 mK. A fraction of ≈ 25 % of these cold atoms is captured by a magneto-optic compressor and molded into a 0.7 mm uc(FWHM) wide atomic beam that contains up to 5× 10^10 Ne(3s)/s. The resulting density is 1.1× 10^9 Ne(3s)/cm^3. In the final step, a Doppler cooler is used to minimize the divergence of the beam to 10 mrad. This value will further improve once the Doppler cooler is replaced by a sub-Doppler cooler. We plan to use this ``bright beam'' to investigate the ionization probabilities in Ne(3s)+Ne(3s) collisions. Emphasis will be on the suppression of ionization when the atoms are spin-polarized. This has important implications for the possibilities of using metastable atoms for BEC-type experiments. Present adress: NIST

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An atomic beam brightener with a 1600-fold increase in intensity for Ne

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The study of collisions between excited atoms requires high-intensity atomic beams to achieve detector signals of sufficient strength. Producing large densities of excited rare gas atoms R is especially difficult, since with conventional sources metastable atoms R make up a tiny fraction of ≈10-5 of the total beam flux. In such cases, 'brightening' the beam is the only way to achieve a sufficiently large flux. We have followed a scheme proposed by Metcalf to brighten an atomic beam of neon. The setup employs laser cooling on the Ne((3s)3P2 → (3p)3D3) cycling transition, and consists of three stages. First, we collimate all atoms emerging from a discharge source within a half-angle θ0 = 100 mrad. Second, the collimated beam is focused to a point. Third, the now converging beam is re-collimated to form a thin and bright atomic beam.

European Quantum Electronics Conference (EQEC)•Aug 24, 2005•0 citations
We have developed a ``beam brightener'' in which several different laser cooling methods produce a highly monochromatic, unidirectional and intense beam of metastable Ne(3s;^3P_2) atoms. The beam brightener consists of four main stages. From an exited neon source we capture in a collimating section 5× 10^11 Ne(3s)/s from which ≈ 50 % is slowed to 100 m/s in a Zeeman slower. The final velocity distribution shows a width of 3.3 m/s uc(RMS,) corresponding to a temperature of 12 mK. A fraction of ≈ 25 % of these cold atoms is captured by a magneto-optic compressor and molded into a 0.7 mm uc(FWHM) wide atomic beam that contains up to 5× 10^10 Ne(3s)/s. The resulting density is 1.1× 10^9 Ne(3s)/cm^3. In the final step, a Doppler cooler is used to minimize the divergence of the beam to 10 mrad. This value will further improve once the Doppler cooler is replaced by a sub-Doppler cooler. We plan to use this ``bright beam'' to investigate the ionization probabilities in Ne(3s)+Ne(3s) collisions. Emphasis will be on the suppression of ionization when the atoms are spin-polarized. This has important implications for the possibilities of using metastable atoms for BEC-type experiments. Present adress: NIST
Control of the combined Penning and associative ionization cross section is demonstrated with cold (~1mK) metastable Ne (3s 3 P 2 ) atoms in a magneto-optical trap (MOT). By illuminating the trapped atoms with a near resonant probe laser beam, increased ionization rates are observed at several detunings. The probe beam is swept through a region from +500MHz to −500MHz. The increase in the Penning and associative ionization cross section is observed in both the red and blue regions of the spectrum.
The study of collisions between excited atoms requires high-intensity atomic beams to achieve detector signals of sufficient strength. Producing large densities of excited rare gas atoms R is especially difficult, since with conventional sources metastable atoms R make up a tiny fraction of ≈10-5 of the total beam flux. In such cases, 'brightening' the beam is the only way to achieve a sufficiently large flux. We have followed a scheme proposed by Metcalf to brighten an atomic beam of neon. The setup employs laser cooling on the Ne((3s)3P2 → (3p)3D3) cycling transition, and consists of three stages. First, we collimate all atoms emerging from a discharge source within a half-angle θ0 = 100 mrad. Second, the collimated beam is focused to a point. Third, the now converging beam is re-collimated to form a thin and bright atomic beam.