Simultaneous magneto-optical trapping of lithium and ytterbium atoms towards production of ultracold polar molecules

Abstract

We have successfully implemented the first simultaneous magneto-optical trapping (MOT) of lithium (${}^6$Li) and ytterbium (${}^{174}$Yb) atoms, towards production of ultracold polar molecules of LiYb. For this purpose, we developed the dual atomic oven which contains both atomic species as an atom source and successfully observed the spectra of the Li and Yb atoms in the atomic beams from the dual atomic oven. We constructed the vacuum chamber including the glass cell with the windows made of zinc selenium (ZnSe) for the CO${}_2$ lasers, which are the useful light sources of optical trapping for evaporative and sympathetic cooling. Typical atom numbers and temperatures in the compressed MOT are 7$\times 10^3$ atoms, 640 $\mu$K for ${}^6$Li, 7$\times 10^4$ atoms and 60 $\mu$K for ${}^{174}$Yb, respectively.

6 pages, 4 figures

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• External field control of collective spin excitations in an optical lattice of ${}^2\Sigma$ molecules
• Sympathetic cooling in an optically trapped mixture of alkali and spin-singlet atoms
• Scattering lengths in isotopologues of the RbYb system
• Ytterbium in quantum gases and atomic clocks: van der Waals interactions and blackbody shifts
• Ab initio properties of Li-Group-II molecules for ultracold matter studies
• Sympathetic cooling in a mixture of diamagnetic and paramagnetic atoms
• Ground and excited state properties of the polar and paramagnetic RbSr molecule: a comparative study
• A Three-Dimensional Optical Lattice of Ytterbium and Lithium Atomic Mixture
• A versatile dual-species Zeeman slower for caesium and ytterbium
• Magnetically tunable Feshbach resonances in Li + Yb(${}^3{P}_J$)
• Relativistic many-body calculations of van der Waals coefficients for Yb-Li and Yb-Rb dimers
• Sub-Doppler cooling of ytterbium with the ${}^1{S}_0$-${}^1{P}_1$ transition including ${}^{171}$Yb (I=1/2)
• Spectroscopy and laser cooling on the ${}^1{S}_0-{}^3{P}_1$ line in Yb via an injection-locked diode laser at 1111.6nm
• Quantum annealing with pairs of ${}^2\Sigma$ molecules as qubits
• Phase Equilibrium of Binary Mixtures in Mixed Dimensions
• Development of a 671 nm injection-locked CW Ti:sapphire laser