Stuttgart 2012 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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A: Fachverband Atomphysik
A 40: Poster: Ultra-cold atoms, ions and BEC
A 40.34: Poster
Donnerstag, 15. März 2012, 16:30–19:00, Poster.V
Narrow-line magneto-optical trap for erbium: A simple approach for a complex atom — •Albert Frisch1, Kiyotaka Aikawa1, Michael Mark1, Simon Baier1, Rudolf Grimm1,2, and Francesca Ferlaino1 — 1Institut für Experimentalphysik und Zentrum für Quantenphysik, Universität Innsbruck, Technikerstraße 25, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria — 2Institut für Quantenoptik und Quanteninformation, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria
We report on the experimental realization of a robust and efficient magneto-optical trap (MOT) for erbium atoms, based on a weak cooling transition at 583 nm. The atomic beam is captured into the narrow-line MOT from a Zeeman slower operating on the strong optical transition at 401 nm. We observe up to N=3 × 108 atoms at a temperature of T=15 µ K. This simple scheme provides better starting conditions for loading the dipole trap compared to approaches based on the strong cooling transition or on the combination of a strong and an ultra-narrow transition.
We demonstrate direct loading of the dipole trap from the narrow-line MOT without any additonal cooling stages. Finally we investigate collisional properties of ultracold dipolar erbium atoms.
Our cooling and trapping scheme simplifies the route towards quantum degneracy and thus we speculate it can be successfully applied to other atoms in the lanthanide series.