We report on a novel Magneto-Optical Trap (MOT) geometry involving the retroreflection of one of the six MOT beams in order to create an atom cloud close to the surface of a prism which does not have optical access along one axis. A MOT of Rb$^{85}$ with $\sim 4 \times 10^7$ atoms can be created 700 um from the surface. The MOT lies close to the minimum of an evanescent Gravito-Optical Surface Trap (GOST) allowing for transfer into the GOST with potentially minimal losses.
We demonstrate the use of spatial emission patterns to measure the magnetic fields used in a magneto-optical trap. The directional aspect of the Hanle effect gives a direct, visual presentation of the magnetic fields, in which brighter fluorescence indicates larger fields. It can be used to determine the direction as well as the magnitude of the field. It is particularly well suited for characterizing and aligning magneto-optical traps, requiring little additional equipment or setup beyond what is ordinarily used in a magneto-optical trap, and being most sensitive to fields of the size typical…
Large clouds of cold atoms prepared in a magneto-optical trap can develop spatio-temporal instabilities when the frequency of the trapping lasers is brought close to the atomic resonance. This system bears close similarities with trapped plasmas, whereby effective Coulomb interactions are induced by the exchange of scattered photons and lead to collective nonlinear dynamics of the trapped atoms. We report in this paper a detailed experimental study of the instability threshold, and comparisons with three-dimensional simulations of the interacting, laser-driven cloud.
We investigate the limiting factors in the standard implementation of the Ca magneto-optical trap. We find that intercombination transitions from the 4s5p 1P1 state used to repump electronic population from the 3d4s 1D2 state severely reduce the trap lifetime. We explore seven alternative repumping schemes theoretically and investigate five of them experimentally. We find all five of these schemes yield a significant increase in trap lifetime and consequently improve the number of atoms and peak atom density by as much as ~20x and ~6x, respectively. One of these transitions, at 453 nm, is show…
Modeling magneto-optical trapping of CaF molecules
分子的磁光俘获力远弱于碱金属原子，因为当存在多个基态时，光子散射率会降低，并且因为光泵入暗态。当上态的塞曼分裂比下态小得多时，力进一步减小。我们使用速率模型来估计CaF分子的磁光阱（MOT）中的捕获力和阻尼力的强度，使用A $^{2}Π_{1/2}$ - X $^{2}Σ^{+}$跃迁或B $^{2}Σ^{+}$ - X $^{2}Σ^{+}$跃迁。我们确定了一个新的机制时，出现的磁光捕获，在每一个光束的MOT，两个激光组件具有相反的偏振和不同的失谐地址相同的过渡。这种机制产生一个强大的捕获力，即使在上层状态有很少或没有塞曼分裂。当使用A $^{2}Π_{1/2}$ - X $^{2}Σ^{+}$转变时，它是负责捕获力的主要机制。
We demonstrate a 1D magneto-optical trap of the polar free radical calcium monohydroxide (CaOH). A quasi-closed cycling transition is established to scatter $\sim 10^3$ photons per molecule, predominantly limited by interaction time. This enables radiative laser cooling of CaOH while compressing the molecular beam, leading to a significant increase in on-axis beam brightness and reduction in temperature from 8.4 mK to 1.4 mK.
We have developed a unique neutralizer device that uses an yttrium target surrounded by a platinum wall to magneto-optically trap radioactive atoms. In general, the radioactive nucleus produced in a nuclear reaction is extracted and transported in ion form. For the magneto-optical trap, thermal neutralization must occur on the surface of a metal with a small work function. The converter can produce a neutral atomic beam with small angular divergence that, given the recycling of atoms and ions, converts ions into neutral atoms with remarkable efficiency. We demonstrated the ion neutralization p…
Magneto-optical trapping (MOT) is a key technique on the route towards ultracold molecular ensembles. However, the realization and optimization of magneto-optical traps with their wide parameter space is particularly difficult. Here, we present a very general method for the optimization of molecular magneto-optical trap operation by means of Bayesian optimization (BO). As an example for a possible application, we consider the optimization of a calcium fluoride (CaF) MOT for maximum capture velocity. We find that both the $X^2Σ^+\,$ to $A^2Π_{1/2}\,$ and the $X^2Σ^+\,$ to $B^2Σ^+\,$ transition …
A large cloud of $^{87}$Rb atoms confined in a magneto-optical trap exhibits, in a certain regime of parameters, spatio-temporal instabilities with a dynamics resembling that of a turbulent fluid. We apply the methods of turbulence theory based on structure function analysis to extract scaling exponents which are compared to known turbulent regimes. This analysis also allows us to make a clear distinction between different instability regimes.
Photoionization loss in simultaneous magneto-optical trapping of Rb and Sr
我们证明了Rb和Sr的同时磁光俘获（MOT）和检查的特征损失的Rb在MOT由于光电离的冷却激光Sr。光电离截面Rb在$5P_{3/2}$状态在461 nm处被确定为$1.4(1)\times10^{-17}$ cm $^2$。重要的是要考虑这种损失率，以实现足够大数量的被捕获的Rb原子，从而实现Rb和Sr的量子简并混合物。
We report magneto-optical trapping (MOT) of a polyatomic molecule, calcium monohydroxide (CaOH). The MOT contains $2.0(5)\times 10^4$ CaOH molecules at a peak density of $3.0(8)\times10^{6}$ cm$^{-3}$. CaOH molecules are further sub-Doppler laser cooled in an optical molasses, to a temperature of 110(4) $μ$K. The temperatures and densities achieved here make CaOH a viable candidate for a wide variety of quantum science applications, including the creation of optical tweezer arrays of CaOH molecules. This work also suggests that laser cooling and magneto-optical trapping of many other polyatomi…
We propose different experimental methods to measure the analog of the Debye length in a very large Magneto-Optical Trap, which should characterize the spatial correlations in the atomic cloud. An analytical, numerical and experimental study of the response of the atomic cloud to an external modulation potential suggests that this Debye length, if it exists, is significantly larger than what was expected.
We improve the efficiency of sawtooth-wave-adiabatic-passage (SWAP) cooling for strontium atoms in three dimensions and combine it with standard narrow-line laser cooling. With this technique, we create strontium magneto-optical traps with $6\times 10^7$ bosonic $^{88}$Sr ($1\times 10^7$ fermionic $^{87}$Sr) atoms at phase-space densities of $2\times 10^{-3}$ ($1.4\times 10^{-4}$). Our method is simple to implement and is faster and more robust than traditional cooling methods.
We present the properties and advantages of a new magneto-optical trap (MOT) where blue-detuned light drives `type-II' transitions that have dark ground states. Using $^{87}$Rb, we reach a radiation-pressure-limited density exceeding $10^{11}$cm$^{-3}$ and a temperature below 30$μ$K. The phase-space density is higher than in normal atomic MOTs, and a million times higher than comparable red-detuned type-II MOTs, making it particularly attractive for molecular MOTs which rely on type-II transitions. The loss of atoms from the trap is dominated by ultracold collisions between Rb atoms. For typic…
Laser cooling and trapping are central to modern atomic physics. The workhorse technique in cold-atom physics is the magneto-optical trap (MOT), which combines laser cooling with a restoring force from radiation pressure. For a variety of atomic species, MOTs can capture and cool large numbers of particles to ultracold temperatures (<1 mK); this has enabled the study of a wide range of phenomena from optical clocks to ultracold collisions whilst also serving as the ubiquitous starting point for further cooling into the regime of quantum degeneracy. Magneto-optical trapping of molecules could p…
We demonstrated a frequency offset locking between two laser sources using a waveguide-type electro-optic modulator (EOM) with 10th-order sidebands for magneto-optical trapping of Fr atoms. The frequency locking error signal was successfully obtained by performing delayed self-homodyne detection of the beat signal between the repumping frequency and the 10th-order sideband component of the trapping light. Sweeping the trapping-light and repumping-light frequencies with keeping its frequency difference of 46 GHz was confirmed over 1 GHz by monitoring the Doppler absorption profile of I2. This t…
We propose and demonstrate the laser cooling and trapping of Rydberg-dressed Sr atoms. By off-resonantly coupling the excited state of a narrow (7 kHz) cooling transition to a high-lying Rydberg state, we transfer Rydberg properties such as enhanced electric polarizability to a stable magneto-optical trap operating at $< 1 μK$. By increasing the density to $1 \times 10^{12} \rm{cm^{-3}}$, we show that it is possible to reach a regime where the long-range interaction between Rydberg-dressed atoms becomes comparable to the kinetic energy, opening a route to combining laser cooling with tunable l…
We demonstrate a novel way to form and deplete a vapor-cell magneto-optic trap (MOT) using a reversible, solid-state alkali-metal source (AMS) via an applied polarized voltage. Using ~100 mW of electrical power, a trapped-atom number of 5x10^6 has been achieved starting from near zero and the timescales of the MOT formation and depletion of ~1 s. This fast, reversible, and low power alkali-atom source is desirable in both tabletop and portable cold-atom systems. The core technology of this device should translate readily to other alkali and alkaline-earth elements that could find a wide range …
In this paper, we present a technique for magneto-optical cooling and trapping of neutral atoms using a single laser. The alternating-frequency magneto-optical trap (AF-MOT) uses an agile light source that sequentially switches between cooling and repumping transition frequencies by tuning the injection current of the laser diode. We report on the experimental demonstration of such a system for 87Rb and 85Rb based on a micro-integrated extended cavity diode laser (ECDL) performing laser frequency jumps of up to 6.6 GHz with a tuning time in the microsecond regime and a repetition rate of up to…
We demonstrate significantly improved magneto-optical trapping of molecules using a very slow cryogenic beam source and RF modulated and DC magnetic fields. The RF MOT confines $1.1(3) \times 10^5$ CaF molecules at a density of $4(1) \times 10^6$ cm$^{-3}$, which is an order of magnitude greater than previous molecular MOTs. Near Doppler-limited temperatures of $340(20)$ $μ$K are attained. The achieved density enables future work to directly load optical tweezers and create optical arrays for quantum simulation.
We demonstrate for the first time the two-color cooling and trapping of alkaline-earth atoms in a grating magneto-optical trap (gMOT). The trap is formed by a single incident laser beam together with four secondary beams that are generated via diffraction from a nanostructured wafer. A grating structure for a gMOT operating with strontium atoms is optimized and fabricated. We trap $10^6$ $^{88}$Sr atoms on the $^1$S$_0$ $\rightarrow$ $^1$P$_1$ transition at $461\;\mathrm{nm}$ and transfer $25\;\%$ of these atoms to the second cooling stage on the narrower $^1$S$_0$ $\rightarrow$ $^3$P$_1$ inte…
