https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2004-00041-3
Laser cooling and trapping of Yb from a thermal source
Department of Physics, Indian Institute of
Science, Bangalore 560 012, India
Corresponding author: a vasant@physics.iisc.ernet.in
Received:
27
February
2003
Revised:
15
February
2004
Published online:
23
March
2004
We have successfully loaded a magneto-optic trap
for Yb atoms from a thermal source without the use of a
Zeeman slower. The source is placed close to the trapping
region so that it provides a large flux of atoms that can
be cooled and captured. The atoms are cooled on the
transition at 398.9 nm.
We have loaded all seven stable isotopes of Yb into the
trap including the rarest isotope, 168Yb. For the most
abundant isotope (174Yb), we load more than 108 atoms into the trap within 1 s. We have characterized the
source by studying the loading rate and the loss rate for
different isotopes and at different trapping powers. We
extract values for the loss rate due to collisions and due
to branching into low-lying metastable levels. At the
highest trap densities, we find evidence of additional loss
due to intra-trap collisions.
PACS: 32.80.Pj – Optical cooling of atoms; trapping / 42.50.Vk – Mechanical effects of light on atoms, molecules, electrons, and ions
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag, 2004
