Abstract
We demonstrate a trap that confines polarizable particles around the antinode of a standing-wave microwave field. The trap relies only on the polarizability of the particles far from any resonances, so can trap a wide variety of atoms and molecules in a wide range of internal states, including the ground state. The trap has a volume of about 10 cm$^3$, and a depth approaching 1 K for many polar molecules. We measure the trap properties using $^{7}$Li atoms, showing that when the input microwave power is 610 W, the atoms remain trapped with a $1/e$ lifetime of 1.76(12) s, oscillating with an axial frequency of 28.55(5) Hz and a radial frequency of 8.81(8) Hz. The trap could be loaded with slow molecules from a range of available sources, and is particularly well suited to sympathetic cooling and evaporative cooling of molecules.
Highlights
Almost all research using cold atoms, molecules, and ions relies on trapping
Heating due to spontaneous emission, which often limits the lifetime of an optical trap, is eliminated in the microwave trap
Important at present is the development of new traps for cold polar molecules, which can be used to test fundamental physics [7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14], study cold chemistry [15,16,17], process quantum information [18,19,20], and explore interacting many-body quantum systems [21,22,23,24]
Summary
Almost all research using cold atoms, molecules, and ions relies on trapping. The trap confines the particles to a small volume so that they can be cooled to low temperature, collide with one another, and be studied and controlled with high precision. The microwave trap has a depth similar to an optical dipole trap, but its volume is 106 times greater so it can trap samples with a much lower phase-space density.
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