https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2011-10720-5
Regular Article
Bose-Einstein condensation of 87Rb in a levitated crossed dipole trap
Department of Physics, Durham University, Rochester Building,
Science Laboratories, South Road,
DH1 3 LE Durham,
UK
a e-mail: d.l.jenkin@dur.ac.uk
Received:
22
December
2010
Received in final form:
21
February
2011
Published online:
27
April
2011
We report an apparatus and method capable of producing Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) of ~1 × 106 87Rb atoms, and ultimately designed for sympathetic cooling of 133Cs and the creation of ultracold RbCs molecules. The method combines several elements: (i) the large recapture of a magnetic quadrupole trap from a magneto-optical trap; (ii) efficient forced RF evaporation in such a magnetic trap; (iii) the gain in phase-space density obtained when loading the magnetically trapped atoms into a far red-detuned optical dipole trap, and (iv) efficient evaporation to BEC within the dipole trap. We demonstrate that the system is capable of sympathetically cooling the |F = 1, mF = −1〉 and |1,0⟩ sublevels with |1, +1〉 atoms. Finally we discuss the applicability of the method to sympathetic cooling of 133Cs with 87Rb.
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag 2011