Laser cooling and trapping of Yb from a thermal source

Rapol, UD and Krishna, A and Wasan, A and Natarajan, V (2004) Laser cooling and trapping of Yb from a thermal source. In: The European Physical Journal D - Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, 29 (3). pp. 409-414.

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Abstract

We have successfully loaded a magneto-optic trap for Yb atoms from a thermal source without the use of a Zeeman slower. The source is placed close to the trapping region so that it provides a large flux of atoms that can be cooled and captured. The atoms are cooled on the $^1S_0 \leftrightarrow ^1P_1$ transition at 398.9 nm. We have loaded all seven stable isotopes of Yb into the trap including the rarest isotope, $^{168}Yb.$ For the most abundant isotope $(^{174}Yb),$ we load more than $10^8$ atoms into the trap within 1 s. We have characterized the source by studying the loading rate and the loss rate for different isotopes and at different trapping powers. We extract values for the loss rate due to collisions and due to branching into low-lying metastable levels. At the highest trap densities, we find evidence of additional loss due to intra-trap collisions.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	The European Physical Journal D - Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics
Publisher:	Springer
Additional Information:	The copyright belongs to Springer.
Department/Centre:	Division of Physical & Mathematical Sciences > Physics
Date Deposited:	10 May 2006
Last Modified:	19 Sep 2010 04:26
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/6653

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