Direct loading of a Sr magneto-optical trap from a thermal atomic beam

Abstract

We demonstrate direct loading of a strontium (Sr) magneto-optical trap (MOT) from a thermal atomic beam in a single-chamber vacuum system. The MOT operates without a Zeeman slower, a slowing laser, a two-dimensional MOT, or differential pumping, while the entire system is maintained in the ultra-high-vacuum regime by a single ion pump. At an oven temperature of $395{}^{\circ }\mathrm{C}$, the MOT captures up to $10^7$ ${}^{88}\mathrm{Sr}$ atoms with a loading rate of $10^7\mathrm{atoms}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$, while sustaining a background gas pressure of $1\times 10^{-9}\mathrm{Torr}$. At this oven temperature, the MOT lifetime limited by collisions with background gas is $\sim 5\mathrm{s}$, with the atom number primarily constrained by light-assisted two-body collisions. Eliminating differential pumping and precooling stages significantly reduces the system's size, weight, and power requirements, providing a robust and practical platform for field-deployable and spaceborne optical lattice clocks, as well as a variety of other applications requiring compact ultracold atom sources.

10 pages, 9 figures

References in corpus (32)

• Systematic evaluation of an atomic clock at 2e-18 total uncertainty
• Atomic clock performance beyond the geodetic limit
• An ${}^{27}$Al${}^{+}$ quantum-logic clock with systematic uncertainty below $10^{-18}$
• Geodesy and metrology with a transportable optical clock
• Optical clock intercomparison with $6\times 10^{-19}$ precision in one hour
• Resolving the gravitational redshift within a millimeter atomic sample
• Gravitational wave detection with optical lattice atomic clocks
• A Fermi-degenerate three-dimensional optical lattice clock
• JILA SrI Optical Lattice Clock with Uncertainty of $2.0\times 10^{-18}$
• Spin-orbit coupled fermions in an optical lattice clock
• Quantum computing with alkaline earth atoms
• A transportable optical lattice clock with $7\times 10^{-17}$ uncertainty
• Test of special relativity using a fiber network of optical clocks
• Bose-Einstein Condensation of Strontium
• Frequency ratio of Yb and Sr clocks with $5\times 10^{-17}$ uncertainty at 150 s averaging time
• Matter-wave Atomic Gradiometer Interferometric Sensor (MAGIS-100)
• A high-performance optical lattice clock based on bosonic atoms
• Roadmap towards the redefinition of the second
• Long-lived Bell states in an array of optical clock qubits
• A transportable strontium optical lattice clock
• Vacuum Pressure Measurements using a Magneto-Optical Trap
• Search for ultralight dark matter from long-term frequency comparisons of optical and microwave atomic clocks
• Spectroscopy of strontium Rydberg states using electromagnetically induced transparency
• A compact and efficient strontium oven for laser-cooling experiments
• Confinement of an alkaline-earth element in a grating magneto-optical trap
• A Sideband-Enhanced Cold Atomic Source For Optical Clocks
• Reservoir spectroscopy of 5s5p ${}^3$P${}_2$ - 5s$n$d ${}^3$D${}_{1,2,3}$ transitions in strontium
• Zeeman Slowers for Strontium based on Permanent Magnets
• Atom-Number Enhancement by Shielding Atoms from Losses in Strontium Magneto-Optical Traps
• High flux strontium atom source
• Analyzing the optical pumping on the $5s4d{}^1{D}_2-5s8p{}^1{P}_1$ transition in a magneto-optical trap of Sr atoms
• Limitation of single-repumping schemes for laser cooling of Sr atoms

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Direct Measurement of the $5s5p{}^1{P}_1\to 5s4d{}^1{D}_2$ Decay Rate in Strontium