Zeeman slowers made simple with permanent magnets in a Halbach configuration

Abstract

We describe a simple Zeeman slower design using permanent magnets. Contrary to common wire-wound setups no electric power and water cooling are required. In addition, the whole system can be assembled and disassembled at will. The magnetic field is however transverse to the atomic motion and an extra repumper laser is necessary. A Halbach configuration of the magnets produces a high quality magnetic field and no further adjustment is needed. After optimization of the laser parameters, the apparatus produces an intense beam of slow and cold 87Rb atoms. With a typical flux of 1 - 5 \times 10^10 atoms/s at 30 ms^-1, our apparatus efficiently loads a large magneto-optical trap with more than 10^10 atoms in one second, which is an ideal starting point for degenerate quantum gases experiments.

8+6 pages (article + appendices: calculation details, probe and oven description, pictures), 18 figures, supplementary material (movie, Mathematica programs and technical drawings)

References in corpus (1)

• A Zeeman Slower based on magnetic dipoles

Cited by in corpus (18)

• Four-level N-scheme crossover resonances in Rb saturation spectroscopy in magnetic fields
• Zeeman Slowers for Strontium based on Permanent Magnets
• Dynamically configurable and optimizable Zeeman slower using permanent magnets and servomotors
• A versatile dual-species Zeeman slower for caesium and ytterbium
• A robust, high-flux source of laser-cooled ytterbium atoms
• Self-assembled Zeeman slower based on spherical permanent magnets
• Tuneable homogeneous kG magnetic field production using permanent magnets
• Longitudinal Zeeman slowers based on permanent magnetic dipoles
• Detailed study of a transverse field Zeeman slower
• Compact bulk-machined electromagnets for quantum gas experiments
• High flux strontium atom source
• Laser-induced thermal source for cold atoms
• Zeeman slowing of a Group III atom
• Two-color Ytterbium MOT in a compact dual-chamber setup
• A Compact Dual-Beam Zeeman Slower for High-Flux Cold Atoms
• Open-Source Magnetometer for Characterizing Magnetic Fields in Ultracold Experiments
• Permanent magnet based Zeeman slower for lithium atoms
• Efficient water-cooled Bitter-type electromagnet for Zeeman slowing in cold-atom experiments