Abstract
We have realized a 4-beam pyramidal magneto-optical trap ideally suited for future microfabrication. Three mirrors split and steer a single incoming beam into a tripod of reflected beams, allowing trapping in the four-beam overlap volume. We discuss the influence of mirror angle on cooling and trapping, finding optimum efficiency in a tetrahedral configuration. We demonstrate the technique using an ex-vacuo mirror system to illustrate the previously inaccessible supra-plane pyramid MOT configuration. Unlike standard pyramidal MOTs both the pyramid apex and its mirror angle are non-critical and our MOT offers improved molasses free from atomic shadows in the laser beams. The MOT scheme naturally extends to a 2-beam refractive version with high optical access. For quantum gas experiments, the mirror system could also be used for a stable 3D tetrahedral optical lattice.
Highlights
The last decade has seen rapid progress in the development of microfabricated atom ‘chip’ traps
Unlike the ideal case of in-vacuo mirrors, our resulting upwards beams are slightly elliptically polarized as the intensities of the p and s polarization drop by 9% and 24% respectively as a result of the four quartz surfaces experienced by the beam before it returns to the magneto-optical trap (MOT) location
We have demonstrated a pyramidal MOT using a single circularly-polarized beam and only three mirrors
Summary
The last decade has seen rapid progress in the development of microfabricated atom ‘chip’ traps. Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) can be very quickly obtained given the high trapped frequencies leading to a dramatic increase of the RF evaporative cooling stage efficiency, and experiment time can be greatly reduced. Another very attractive way to trap atoms on a chip is achieved using micromirrors [11] etched in a 4-sided pyramidal shape [12] and cooling atoms in a magneto-optical trap (MOT) a design experimentally realized only very recently [13, 14].
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