Stuttgart 2012 – scientific programme
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A: Fachverband Atomphysik
A 16: Ultra-cold atoms, ions and BEC I
A 16.6: Talk
Tuesday, March 13, 2012, 15:30–15:45, V7.02
A novel route to BEC of calcium — •Purbasha Halder, Chih-Yun Yang, and Andreas Hemmerich — Institut für Laserphysik, Universität Hamburg
We present a novel scheme for obtaining a condensate of alkaline-earth-metal and rare earth elements, and demonstrate it successfully for 40Ca atoms. This all-optical method avoids complications of narrow-line laser cooling and trapping schemes which form the basis of previous experimental approaches. By this method, we efficiently load a cold and dense sample of atoms into a dipole trap directly from a MOT operating on the metastable 3P2 state. Loading is carried out by selectively depumping only those MOT atoms which are near the minimum of the dipole trap potential. This increases the phase space density by four orders of magnitude. Further cooling to quantum degeneracy is achieved by forced evaporation, yielding a condensate containing 6000 atoms.