A Sideband-Enhanced Cold Atomic Source For Optical Clocks

Abstract

We demonstrate the enhancement and optimization of a cold strontium atomic beam from a two-dimensional magneto-optical trap (2D-MOT) transversely loaded from a collimated atomic beam by adding a sideband frequency to the cooling laser. The parameters of the cooling and sideband beams were scanned to achieve the maximum atomic beam flux and compared with Monte Carlo simulations. We obtained a 2.3 times larger, and 4 times brighter, atomic flux than a conventional, single-frequency 2D-MOT, for a given total power of 200 mW. We show that the sideband-enhanced 2D-MOT can reach the loading rate performances of space demanding Zeeman slower-based systems, while it can overcome systematic effects due to thermal beam collisions and hot black-body radiation shift, making it suitable for both transportable and accurate optical lattice clocks. Finally we numerically studied the possible extensions of the sideband-enhanced 2D-MOT to other alkaline-earth species.

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• Optically loaded Strontium lattice clock with a single multi-wavelength reference cavity
• Prospects of a superradiant laser based on a thermal or guided beam of Sr-88
• Jet-Loaded Cold Atomic Beam Source for Strontium
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• High flux strontium atom source
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• Laser-induced thermal source for cold atoms
• Two-color Ytterbium MOT in a compact dual-chamber setup
• Limitation of single-repumping schemes for laser cooling of Sr atoms
• A Compact Dual-Beam Zeeman Slower for High-Flux Cold Atoms
• Direct loading of a Sr magneto-optical trap from a thermal atomic beam
• A High-Flux Source of Cold Strontium with a Loading Rate of $4\times 10^{10}$ atoms/s for Open Release