Miniaturized lab system for future cold atom experiments in microgravity

Abstract

We present the technical realization of a compact system for performing experiments with cold ${}^{87}\text{Rb}$ and ${}^{39}\text{K}$ atoms in microgravity in the future. The whole system fits into a capsule to be used in the drop tower Bremen. One of the advantages of a microgravity environment is long time evolution of atomic clouds which yields higher sensitivities in atom interferometer measurements. We give a full description of the system containing an experimental chamber with ultra-high vacuum conditions, miniaturized laser systems, a high-power thulium-doped fiber laser, the electronics and the power management. In a two-stage magneto-optical trap atoms should be cooled to the low $\mu$K regime. The thulium-doped fiber laser will create an optical dipole trap which will allow further cooling to sub-$\mu$K temperatures. The presented system fulfills the demanding requirements on size and power management for cold atom experiments on a microgravity platform, especially with respect to the use of an optical dipole trap. A first test in microgravity, including the creation of a cold Rb ensemble, shows the functionality of the system.

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Cited by in corpus (8)

• Relative Acceleration Noise Mitigation for Nanocrystal Matter-wave Interferometry: Application to Entangling Masses via Quantum Gravity
• Symmetric Bloch oscillations of matter waves
• Quantum test of the Universality of Free Fall using rubidium and potassium
• Evaporative cooling from an optical dipole trap in microgravity
• All-Optical Matter-Wave Lens using Time-Averaged Potentials
• Integrating two-photon nonlinear spectroscopy of rubidium atoms with silicon photonics
• Rapid generation of all-optical ${}^{39}$K Bose-Einstein condensates using a low-field Feshbach resonance
• Quantum Physics in Space