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.
Highlights
A cold, bright, and compact atomic beam source is an important asset for any experiment featuring ultracold atoms, such as atom interferometers [1], degenerate quantum gases for quantum simulation [2], and in particular, optical atomic clocks [3]
We show that the sidebandenhanced 2D magnetooptical trap (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-bodyradiation shift, making it suitable for both transportable and accurate optical lattice clocks
Compact and transportable versions of the “oven + Zeeman slower (ZS)” atomic beam system have been developed [8,9], the ZS magnetic field complicates the design of the magnetooptical trap (MOT) because of stray magnetic fields, which typically need to be compensated with extra coils [10]
Summary
A cold, bright, and compact atomic beam source is an important asset for any experiment featuring ultracold atoms, such as atom interferometers [1], degenerate quantum gases for quantum simulation [2], and in particular, optical atomic clocks [3]. The design, engineering, and characterization of the sideband(SB) enhanced 2D MOT strontium source is the main result of this work This is accomplished by our looking at the loading performances of a three-dimensional (3D) MOT typically used as the first cooling and trapping stage for an optical lattice clock [22]. The article is organized as follows: Sec. II introduces the physical interpretation and significance of adding a sideband frequency to the cooling beams of the 2D MOT; Sec. III describes the experimental apparatus assembled for an optical lattice clock; in Sec. IV we describe the numerical modeling of the atomic source and the 2D MOT cooling and trapping processes by Monte Carlo simulations; Sec. V. reports the experimental characterization of our atomic source, and in Sec. VI we demonstrate how the sidebandenhancement method is able to magnify the number of trapped atoms by a magneto-optical trap. VII discusses the extension of the sideband-enhancement method to other alkaline-earth atomic species and the metrological perspectives opened by this atomic source for optical clocks
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