Magneto optical trapping of Barium

Abstract

First laser cooling and trapping of the heavy alkaline earth element barium has been achieved based on the strong 6s${}^2$ ${}^1$S${}_0$ - 6s6p ${}^1$P${}_1$ transition for the main cooling. Due to the large branching into metastable D-states several additional laser driven transitions are required to provide a closed cooling cycle. A total efficiency of $0.4(1)\cdot 10^{-2}$ for slowing a thermal atomic beam and capturing atoms into a magneto optical trap was obtained. Trapping lifetimes of more than 1.5 s were observed. This lifetime is shortened at high laser intensities by photo ionization losses. The developed techniques will allow to extend significantly the number of elements that can be optically cooled and trapped.

4 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Trapping of Neutral Mercury Atoms and Prospects for Optical Lattice Clocks
• Laser-trapping of Ra-225 and Ra-226 with repumping by room temperature blackbody radiation
• Magneto-optical Trapping of Cadmium
• Calculation of energy levels and transition amplitudes for barium and radium
• Isotope shifts of 6s5d ${}^3$D-states in neutral Barium

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