Precision Control of Cold Rubidium Atoms

Abstract

Research interest in designing sources of cold atoms has significantly increased during the past 10 years with the development of suitable laser sources for magneto‐optical trapping and the further mastering of evaporative cooling in order to achieve Bose‐Einstein condensation. The magneto‐optical trap is now viewed as a standard research facility worldwide and has opened up many exciting research directions in atomic physics. One area of interest is that of combining spherical microcavities with cold atomic sources in order to achieve efficient photon exchange between the cavity and atom for further understandings of cavity quantum electrodynamics. This could eventually lead to atom entanglement via photon exchange, which would have implications for quantum logic design. However, initial attempts to achieve such interactions have been hindered by inadequate control and manipulation of the cold atom source. Here, we present work on designing and building an ultra‐stable source of magneto‐optically cooled rubidium atoms with a temperature in the tens of μK range. We present a suitable experimental arrangement including details on the ultra‐high vacuum chamber, the laser systems being used, and the source of rubidium vapor. We discuss some future directions for the research, including diffraction of atoms from gratings and micron‐sized objects and parameter control of the atom cloud.