We study, numerically and experimentally, the momentum distribution of atoms cooled in optical lattices. Using semi-classical simulations, we show that this distribution is bimodal, made up of a central feature corresponding to "cold", trapped atoms, with tails of "hot", untrapped atoms, and that this holds true also for very shallow potentials. Careful analysis of the distribution of high-momentum untrapped atoms, both from simulations and experiments, shows that the tails of the distribution does not follow a normal law, hinting at a power-law distribution and non-ergodic behavior. We also revisit the phenomenon of décrochage, the potential depth below which the temperature of the atoms starts increasing.
The last few years have seen rapid progress in the application of laser cooling to molecules. In this review, we examine what kinds of molecules can be laser cooled, how to design a suitable cooling scheme, and how the cooling can be understood and modelled. We review recent work on laser slowing, magneto-optical trapping, sub-Doppler cooling, and the confinement of molecules in conservative traps, with a focus on the fundamental principles of each technique. Finally, we explore some of the exciting applications of laser-cooled molecules that should be accessible in the near term.
We report on progress towards a microwave frequency standard based on a laser-cooled 171Yb+ ion trap system. The electronics, lasers, and magnetic shields are integrated into a single physical package. With over 1E5 ions are stably trapped, the system offers a high signal-to-noise ratio Ramsey line-shape. In comparison with previous work, the frequency instability of a 171Yb+ microwave clock was further improved to $8.5 \times {10^{ - 13}}/\sqrt τ$ for averaging times between 10 and 1000 s.
We report on the development of a trapped-ion, microwave frequency standard based on the 12.6 GHz hyperfine transition in laser-cooled ytterbium-171 ions. The entire system fits into a 6U 19-inch rack unit ($51\times49\times28$ cm) and comprises laser, electronics, and physics package subsystems. The performance of this development system is evaluated; the fractional frequency instability was measured to be $3.6\times10^{-12}/\surdτ$ for averaging times between 30 s and 1500 s.
We describe repumping and spectroscopy of laser-cooled strontium (Sr) atoms using the (5s5p)3P2 - (5s4d)3D2 transition. Atom number in a magneto-optical trap is enhanced by driving this transition because Sr atoms that have decayed into the (5s5p)3P2 dark state are repumped back into the (5s2)1S0 ground state. Spectroscopy of 84Sr, 86Sr, 87Sr, and 88Sr improves the value of the (5s5p)3P2 - (5s4d)3D2 transition frequency for 88Sr and determines the isotope shifts for the transition.
We report laser cooling and trapping of yttrium monoxide (YO) molecules in an optical lattice. We show that gray molasses cooling remains exceptionally efficient for YO molecules inside the lattice with a molecule temperature as low as 6.1(6) $μ$K. This approach has produced a trapped sample of 1200 molecules, with a peak spatial density of $\sim1.2\times10^{10}$ cm$^{-3}$, and a peak phase-space density of $\sim3.1\times10^{-6}$. By adiabatically ramping down the lattice depth, we cool the molecules further to 1.0(2) $μ$K, twenty times colder than previously reported for laser-cooled molecule…
A laser-cooled neutral-atom beam from a low-velocity intense source is split into two beams while guided by a magnetic-field potential. We generate our multimode-beamsplitter potential with two current-carrying wires on a glass substrate combined with an external transverse bias field. The atoms bend around several curves over a $10$-cm distance. A maximum integrated flux of $1.5\cdot10^{5} \mathrm{atoms/s}$ is achieved with a current density of $5\cdot10^{4} \mathrm{Ampere/cm^{2}}$ in the 100-$\mathrm{μm}$ diameter wires. The initial beam can be split into two beams with a 50/50 splitting rat…
We present a compact and transportable inertial sensor for precision sensing of rotations and accelerations. The sensor consists of a dual Mach-Zehnder-type atom interferometer operated with laser-cooled $^{87}$Rb. Raman processes are employed to coherently manipulate the matter waves. We describe and characterize the experimental apparatus. A method for passing from a compact geometry to an extended interferometer with three independent atom-light interaction zones is proposed and investigated. The extended geometry will enhance the sensitivity by more than two orders of magnitude which is ne…
We demonstrate coherent microwave control of the rotational, hyperfine and Zeeman states of ultracold CaF molecules, and the magnetic trapping of these molecules in a single, selectable quantum state. We trap about $5\times 10^{3}$ molecules for 2 s at a temperature of 65(11) $μ$K and a density of $1.2 \times 10^{5}$ cm$^{-3}$. We measure the state-specific loss rate due to collisions with background helium.
We present experimental results on the two-body loss rates in a magneto-optical trap of metastable helium atoms. Absolute rates are measured in a systematic way for several laser detunings ranging from -5 to -30 MHz and at different intensities, by monitoring the decay of the trap fluorescence. The dependence of the two-body loss rate coefficient $β$ on the excited state ($2^3P_2$) and metastable state ($2^3S_1$) populations is also investigated. From these results we infer a rather uniform rate constant $K_{sp}=(1{\pm}0.4)\times10^{-7}$ cm$^3$/s.
At BNM-SYRTE laboratories in Paris two 133Cs fountains and a 87Rb one have been already demonstrated. This paper illustrates the construction of a 87Rb and Cs dual fountain realized within the same structure to work simultaneously. Up to now only the Cs part is under operation but Rb part, already completed, will be soon operational. The experiment has been projected to improve present fountain frequency standards and to perform a more precise laboratory test (at 10E-16 level) on a possible time variation of the fine structure constant alpha, as recent cosmological evidences strongly motivates…
The $^2S_{1/2} - ^2P_{1/2}$ and $^2S_{1/2} - ^2P_{3/2}$ transitions in Li-like carbon ions stored and cooled at a velocity of $β\approx 0.47$ in the Experimental Storage Ring (ESR) at the GSI Helmholtz Centre in Darmstadt have been investigated in a laser spectroscopy experiment. Resonance wavelengths were obtained using a new continuous-wave UV laser system and a novel extreme UV (XUV) detection system to detect forward emitted fluorescence photons. The results obtained for the two transitions are compared to existing experimental and theoretical data. A discrepancy found in an earlier laser …
We report Monte Carlo wave function simulation results on cold collisions between magnesium atoms in a strong red-detuned laser field. This is the normal situation e.g. in magneto-optical traps (MOT). The Doppler limit heating rate due to radiative collisions is calculated for Mg-24 atoms in a magneto-optical trap based on the singlet S_0 - singlet P_1 atomic laser cooling transition. We find that radiative heating does not seem to affect the Doppler limit in this case. We also describe a channelling mechanism due to the missing Q branch in the excitation scheme, which could lead to a suppress…
We propose an experiment to search for a permanent atomic electric-dipole moment (EDM) using laser-cooled $^{171}$Yb atoms launched in an atomic fountain. A uniform B field sets the quantization axis, and the Ramsey separated-oscillatory-fields method is used to measure the Zeeman precession frequency of the atoms. Laser beams of appropriate polarization are used for preparation and detection in a given magnetic sublevel. The signature of an EDM is a shift in the Ramsey resonance correlated with application of a large E field. The precision is expected to be at least 20 times better than curre…
We report loading of laser-cooled caesium atoms into a hollow-core photonic-bandgap fiber and confining the atoms in the fiber's 7 $μm$ diameter core with a magic-wavelength dipole trap at $\sim$935 nm. The use of the magic wavelength removes the AC-Stark shift of the 852nm optical transition in caesium caused by the dipole trap in the fiber core and suppresses the inhomogeneous broadening of the atomic ensemble that arises from the radial distribution of the atoms. This opens the possibility to continuously probe the atoms over time scales of a millisecond -- approximately 1000 times longer t…
We report on accurate measurements of the scalar and tensor polarizabilities of the 5D fine structure levels 5D3/2 and 5D5/2 in Rb. The measured values show reasonable correspondence to previously published theoretical predictions, but are more accurate. We implemented laser excitation of the 5D level in a laser cooled cloud of optically polarized Rb-87 atoms placed in a constant electric field.
Based on the Rb$^+$-Rb hybrid trap, we investigate the effect of ion-atom elastic collisions on the number and temperature of the remaining atoms. We measured the remaining atomic number and temperature as a function of the wavelength and intensity of the ionization laser, and whether the ion trap was turned on. Fittings with a single exponential decay function plus an offset to the number and radius of the remaining atoms are found to be in good agreement. We found a difference in the exponential factor of different wavelengths of ionization laser with the ion trap on or off. We suppose that …
We present a high-flux source of cold ytterbium atoms that is robust, lightweight and low-maintenance. Our apparatus delivers $10^9$ atoms/s into a 3D magneto-optical trap without requiring water-cooling or high current power supplies. We achieve this by employing a Zeeman slower and a 2D magneto-optical trap fully based on permanent magnets in Halbach configurations. This strategy minimizes mechanical complexity, stray magnetic fields, and heat production while requiring little to no maintenance, making it applicable to both embedded systems that seek to minimize electrical power consumption,…
We have investigated cold ionizing heteronuclear collisions in dilute mixtures of metastable (2 3S1) 3He and 4He atoms, extending our previous work on the analogous homonuclear collisions [R. J. W. Stas et al., PRA 73, 032713 (2006)]. A simple theoretical model of such collisions enables us to calculate the heteronuclear ionization rate coefficient, for our quasi-unpolarized gas, in the absence of resonant light (T = 1.2 mK): K34(th) = 2.4*10^-10 cm^3/s. This calculation is supported by a measurement of K34 using magneto-optically trapped mixtures containing about 1*10^8 atoms of each species,…
The development of a transportable microwave frequency standard based on the ground-state transition of $^{171}\mathrm{Yb^{+}}$ at ~12.6 GHz requires a compact laser system for cooling the ions, clearing out of long-lived states and also for photoionisation. In this paper, we describe the development of a suitable compact laser system based on a 6U height rack-mounted arrangement with overall dimensions $260 \times 194 \times 335$ mm. Laser outputs at 369 nm (for cooling), 399 nm (photoionisation), 935 nm (repumping) and 760 nm (state clearout) are combined in a fiber arrangement for delivery …
We demonstrate Doppler-free saturated absorption spectroscopy of cold molecular radicals formed by laser ablation inside a cryogenic buffer gas cell. By lowering the temperature, congested regions of the spectrum can be simplified, and by using different temperatures for different regions of the spectrum a wide range of rotational states can be studied optimally. We use the technique to study the optical spectrum of YbF radicals with a resolution of 30 MHz, measuring the magnetic hyperfine parameters of the electronic ground state. The method is suitable for high resolution spectroscopy of a g…
In this paper we present a technique for the precise measurement of electric dipole allowed transitions in trapped ions. By applying a probe and a cooling laser in quick succession, the full transition can be probed without causing distortion from heating the ion. In addition, two probes can be utilized to measure a dispersion-like signal, which is well suited to stabilizing the laser to the transition. We have fully characterized the parameters for the measurement and find that it is possible to measure the transition frequency to better than 100kHz with an interrogation time of 30s. The long…
Doppler and Sisyphus cooling of $^{174}$YbOH are achieved and studied. This polyatomic molecule has high sensitivity to physics beyond the Standard Model and represents a new class of species for future high-precision probes of new T-violating physics. The transverse temperature of the YbOH beam is reduced by nearly two orders of magnitude to $< 600 \, μ$K and the phase-space density is increased by a factor of $>6$ via Sisyphus cooling. We develop a full numerical model of the laser cooling of YbOH and find excellent agreement with the data. We project that laser cooling and magneto-optical t…
We report on a study of cold reactive collisions between sympathetically-cooled molecular ions and laser-cooled atoms in an ion-atom hybrid trap. Chemical reactions were studied at average collision energies <Ecoll>/k > 20 mK, about two orders of magnitude lower than has been achieved in previous experiments with molecular ions. Choosing N2+ +Rb as a prototypical system, we find that the reaction rate is independent of the collision energy, but strongly dependent on the internal state of Rb. Highly efficient charge exchange about four times faster than the Langevin rate was observed with Rb in…
We report sympathetic cooling of $^{113}$Cd$^+$ by laser-cooled $^{40}$Ca$^+$ in a linear Paul trap for microwave clocks. Long-term low-temperature confinement of $^{113}$Cd$^+$ ions was achieved. The temperature of these ions was measured at $90(10)$ mK, and the corresponding uncertainty arising from the second-order Doppler shifts was estimated to a level of $2\times10^{-17}$. Up to $4.2\times10^5$ Cd$^+$ ions were confined in the trap, and the confinement time constant was measured to be 84 hours. After three hours of confinement, there were still $10^5$ Cd$^+$ ions present, indicating that…
We report on the first observation of stationary light pulses and narrowband light storage inside a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber. Laser-cooled atoms were first loaded into the fiber core providing strong light-matter coupling. Light pulses were then stored in a collective atomic excitation using a single control laser beam. By applying a second counterpropagating control beam, a light pulse could be brought to a standstill. Our work paves the way towards the creation of strongly-correlated many-body systems with photons and applications in the field of quantum information processing.
We investigate heteronuclear collisions in isotope mixtures of laser-cooled metastable 3P2 neon. Experiments are performed with spin-polarized atoms in a magnetic trap for all two-isotope combinations of the stable neon isotopes 20Ne, 21Ne, and 22Ne. We determine the rate coefficients for heteronuclear ionizing collisions to beta_{21,20}=(3.9+/-2.7) x 10^{-11} cm^3/s, beta_{22,20}=(2.6+/-0.7) x 10^{-11} cm^3/s, and beta_{21,22}=(3.9+/-1.9) x 10^{-11} cm^3/s. We also study heteronuclear elastic collision processes and give upper bounds for heteronuclear thermal relaxation cross sections. This w…
Recently, laser cooling methods have been extended from atoms to molecules. The complex rotational and vibrational energy level structure of molecules makes laser cooling difficult, but these difficulties have been overcome and molecules have now been cooled to a few microkelvin and trapped for several seconds. This opens many possibilities for applications in quantum science and technology, controlled chemistry, and tests of fundamental physics. This article explains how molecules can be decelerated, cooled and trapped using laser light, reviews the progress made in recent years, and outlines…
I detail applications of timer interrupts in a popular micro-controller family to time critical applications in laser-cooling type experiments. I demonstrate a low overhead 1-bit frequency locking scheme and a multichannel experimental sequencer using the timer-counter intterrupts to achieve accurate timing along with flexible interfaces. The general purpose nature of micro-controllers can offer unique functionality compared with commercial solutions due to the flexibility of a computer controlled interface without the poor latencies associated with computer timing.
We demonstrate the feasibility of a novel microwave power standard based on the electromagnetic interaction with laser-cooled atoms. Under the effect of the radiation, the internal state populations undergo a Rabi flopping oscillation. Measurement of the oscillation frequency allows the determination of the electromagnetic field strength. The measurements are made over a dynamic range of 18 dB and the standard deviation of the measurements is about 0.3%. The field strength was linear with the Rabi frequency within the accuracy of our measurements.
Barium monohydride (BaH) is an attractive candidate for extending laser cooling and trapping techniques to diatomic hydrides. The apparatus and high-resolution optical spectroscopy presented here demonstrate progress toward this goal. A cryogenic buffer-gas-cooled molecular beam of BaH was constructed and characterized. Pulsed laser ablation into cryogenic helium buffer gas delivers $\sim1\times10^{10}$ molecules/sr/pulse in the X$^2Σ^+$ ($v''=0,N''=1$) state of primary interest. More than $1\times10^7$ of these molecules per pulse enter the downstream science region with forward velocities be…
We present long-time simulations of expanding ultracold neutral plasmas, including a full treatment of the strongly coupled ion dynamics. Thereby, the relaxation dynamics of the expanding laser-cooled plasma is studied, taking into account elastic as well as inelastic collisions. It is demonstrated that, depending on the initial conditions, the ionic component of the plasma may exhibit short-range order or even a superimposed long-range order resulting in concentric ion shells. In contrast to ionic plasmas confined in traps, the shell structures are built up from the center of the plasma cloud…
We present first indications of sympathetic cooling between two neutral, optically trapped atomic species. Lithium and cesium atoms are simultaneously stored in an optical dipole trap formed by the focus of a CO$_2$ laser, and allowed to interact for a given period of time. The temperature of the lithium gas is found to decrease when in thermal contact with cold cesium. The timescale of thermalization yields an estimate for the Li-Cs cross-section.
Sympathetic laser cooling of ions stored within a linear-geometry, radio frequency, electric-quadrupole trap has been investigated using computational and theoretical techniques. The simulation, which allows 5 sample ions to interact with 35 laser-cooled atomic ions, revealed an instability heating mechanism, which can prevent ions below a certain critical mass from being sympathetically cooled. This critical mass can however be varied by changing the trapping field parameters thus allowing ions with a very large range of masses to be sympathetically cooled using a single ion species. A theore…
Experimental techniques to manipulate cold molecules have seen great development in recent years. The precision measurements of cold molecules are expected to give insights into fundamental physics. We use a rovibrationally pure sample of ultracold KRb molecules to improve the measurement on the stability of electron-to-proton mass ratio ($μ= \frac{m_{\rm e}}{M_{\rm p}}$). The measurement is based upon a large sensitivity coefficient of the molecular spectroscopy, which utilizes a transition between nearly a degenerate pair of vibrational levels each associated with a different electronic pote…
We observe a significant steady-state deviation from the generalized equipartition theorem, one of the pivotal results of classical statistical mechanics, in a system of confined, laser cooled atoms. We quantify this deviation, measure its dynamics and show that its steady state value quantifies the departure of non-thermal states from thermal equilibrium even for anharmonic confinement. In particular, we find that deviations from equipartition grow as the system dynamics becomes more anomalous. We present numerical simulations that validate the experimental data and reveal an inhomogeneous di…
Ultrashort and ultracold electron bunches created by near-threshold femtosecond photoionization of a laser-cooled gas hold great promise for single-shot ultrafast diffraction experiments. In previous publications the transverse beam quality and the bunch length have been determined. Here the longitudinal energy spread of the generated bunches is measured for the first time, using a specially developed Wien filter. The Wien filter has been calibrated by determining the average deflection of the electron bunch as a function of magnetic field. The measured relative energy spread $\frac{σ_{U}}{U} …
We demonstrate launching of laser-cooled Yb atoms in a cold atomic fountain. Atoms in a collimated thermal beam are first cooled and captured in a magneto-optic trap (MOT) operating on the strongly-allowed ${^1S}_0 \rightarrow {^1P}_1$ transition at 399~nm (blue line). They are then transferred to a MOT on the weakly-allowed ${^1S}_0 \rightarrow {^3P}_1$ transition at 556~nm (green line). Cold atoms from the green MOT are launched against gravity at a velocity of around 2.5~m/s using a pair of green beams. We trap more than $10^7$ atoms in the blue MOT and transfer up to 70\% into the green MO…
Trapping and optically interfacing laser-cooled neutral atoms is an essential requirement for their use in advanced quantum technologies. Here we simultaneously realize both of these tasks with cesium atoms interacting with a multi-color evanescent field surrounding an optical nanofiber. The atoms are localized in a one-dimensional optical lattice about 200 nm above the nanofiber surface and can be efficiently interrogated with a resonant light field sent through the nanofiber. Our technique opens the route towards the direct integration of laser-cooled atomic ensembles within fiber networks, …
A counterintuitive scheme to produce ultracold hydrogen via fragmentation of laser cooled diatomic hydrides is presented where the final atomic H temperature is inversely proportional to the mass of the molecular parent. In addition, the critical density for formation of a Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC) at a fixed temperature is reduced by a factor ratio hydrogen mass: parent mass raised to power 3/2 over directly cooled hydrogen atoms. The narrow Feshbach resonances between a singlet S atom and hydrogen are well suited to a tiny center of mass energy release necessary during fragmentation. Wi…
We study the peformances of Raman velocimetry applied to laser-cooled, spin-polarized, cesium atoms. Atoms are optically pumped into the F=4, m=0 ground-state Zeeman sublevel, which is insensitive to magnetic perturbations. High resolution Raman stimulated spectroscopy is shown to produce Fourier-limited lines, allowing, in realistic experimental conditions, atomic velocity selection to one-fiftieth of a recoil velocity.
We reported a detailed experimental study of the cold collision of Barium monofluoride (BaF) with buffer gas and the high-resolution spectroscopy relevant with direct laser cooling. BaF molecules are efficiently produced with laser ablation and buffer-gas cooled in a cryogenic apparatus. The laser cooling relevant transition $|X^2Σ, v=0, N=1\rangle$ to $|A^2Π, v'=0, J'=1/2\rangle$ is identified. The collision cross section with buffer gas is measured to be $1.4(7)\times10^{-14} cm^{-2}$, which is very suitable for buffer gas cooling. Both rotational and vibrational temperatures are effectively…
Gas-phase multiply charged proteins have been sympathetically cooled to translational temperatures below 1 K by Coulomb interaction with laser-cooled barium ions in a linear ion trap. In one case, an ensemble of 53 cytochrome c molecules (mass ~ 12390 amu, charge +17 e) was cooled by ~ 160 laser-cooled barium ions to less than 0.75 K. Storage times of more than 20 minutes have been observed and could easily be extended to more than an hour. The technique is applicable to a wide variety of complex molecules.
We have studied the dynamics of one and two laser-cooled trapped $^{40}$Ca$^+$ ions by applying electric fields of different nature along the axial direction of the trap, namely, driving the motion with a harmonic dipolar field, or with white noise. These two types of driving induce distinct motional states of the axial modes; a coherent oscillation with the dipolar field, or an enhanced Brownian motion due to an additional contribution to the heating rate from the electric noise. In both scenarios, the sensitivity of an isolated ion and a laser-cooled two-ion crystal has been evaluated and co…
We describe the loading of laser-cooled rubidium atoms into a single-mode hollow-core photonic-crystal fiber. Inside the fiber, the atoms are confined by a far-detuned optical trap and probed by a weak resonant beam. We describe different loading methods and compare their trade-offs in terms of implementation complexity and atom-loading efficiency. The most efficient procedure results in loading of ~30,000 rubidium atoms, which creates a medium with optical depth ~180 inside the fiber. Compared to our earlier study this represents a six-fold increase in maximum achieved optical depth in this s…
Precision searches for time-reversal symmetry violating interactions in polar molecules are extremely sensitive probes of high energy physics beyond the Standard Model. To extend the reach of these probes into the PeV regime, long coherence times and large count rates are necessary. Recent advances in laser cooling of polar molecules offer one important tool -- optical trapping. However, the types of molecules that have been laser-cooled so far do not have the highly desirable combination of features for new physics searches, such as the ability to fully polarize and the existence of internal …
We demonstrate a prototype of a Focused Ion Beam machine based on the ionization of a laser-cooled cesium beam adapted for imaging and modifying different surfaces in the few-tens nanometer range. Efficient atomic ionization is obtained by laser promoting ground-state atoms into a target excited Rydberg state, then field-ionizing them in an electric field gradient. The method allows obtaining ion currents up to 130 pA. Comparison with the standard direct photo-ionization of the atomic beam shows, in our conditions, a 40-times larger ion yield. Preliminary imaging results at ion energies in the…
We demonstrate launching of laser-cooled Yb atoms in a continuous atomic beam. The continuous cold beam has significant advantages over the more-common pulsed fountain, which was also demonstrated by us recently. The cold beam is formed in the following steps---(i) Atoms from a thermal beam are first Zeeman slowed to a small final velocity, (ii) the slowed atoms are captured in a two-dimensional magneto-optic trap (2D-MOT), and (iii) atoms are launched {\em continuously} in the vertical direction using two sets of moving-molasses beams, inclined at $\pm 15^\circ$ to the vertical. The cooling t…
We have performed for the first time direct laser spectroscopy of the 1S0-3P0 optical clock transition at 265.6 nm in fermionic isotopes of neutral mercury laser-cooled in a magneto-optical trap. Spectroscopy is performed by measuring the depletion of the magneto-optical trap induced by the excitation of the long-lived 3P0 state by a probe at 265.6 nm. Measurements resolve the Doppler-free recoil doublet allowing for a determination of the transition frequency to an uncer- tainty well below the Doppler-broadened linewidth. We have performed absolute measurement of the frequency with respect to…
Portable laser-cooled ytterbium beam clock based on an ultra-narrow optical transition
Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing (IPAS) and School of Physics, Chemistry and Earth Sciences, University of Adelaide（阿德莱德大学光子学与先进传感研究所及物理、化学与地球科学学院）；School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Queensland（昆士兰大学数学与物理学院）
We demonstrate one-dimensional Doppler cooling of a beam of buffer-gas cooled Barium monofluoride (BaF) molecules. The dependences of the cooling efficiency with the laser detuning, the bias filed and the laser intensity are carefully measured. We numerical simulate our experiment with a Monte Carlo method, and find the theoretic predictions consists with our experimental data. This result represents a key step towards further cooling and trapping of BaF molecules.
We investigate a solid-state, reversible, alkali-ion battery (AIB) capable of regulating the density of alkali atoms in a vacuum system used for the production of laser-cooled atoms. The cold-atom sample can be used with in-vacuum chronoamperometry as a diagnostic for the voltage-controlled electrochemical reaction that sources or sinks alkali atoms into the vapor. In a combined reaction-diffusion-limited regime, we show that the number of laser-cooled atoms in a magneto-optical trap can be increased both by initially loading the AIB from the vapor for longer, and by using higher voltages acro…
Current precision experiments with single (anti)protons to test CPT symmetry progress at a rapid pace, but are complicated by the need to cool particles to sub-thermal energies. We describe a cryogenic Penning-trap setup for $^9$Be$^+$ ions designed to allow coupling of single (anti)protons to laser-cooled atomic ions for sympathetic cooling and quantum logic spectroscopy. We report on trapping and laser cooling of clouds and single $^9$Be$^+$ ions. We discuss prospects for a microfabricated trap to allow coupling of single (anti)protons to laser-cooled $^9$Be$^+$ ions for sympathetic laser co…
Specular reflection of polar molecules from a simple multi-cylinder electrostatic mirror: a method for separating BaF molecules produced in a buffer-gas-cooled laser-ablation source from other ablation products
