Eur. Phys. J. D 65, 251-255 (2011)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2011-20064-9

Regular Article

Magneto-optical trapping of neutral mercury

TU Darmstadt, Inst. for Applied Physics, Schlossgartenstr. 7, 64289 Darmstadt, Germany

^a e-mail: thomas.walther@physik.tu-darmstadt.de

Received: 27 January 2011
Received in final form: 17 March 2011
Published online: 17 May 2011

Abstract

We report on the cooling of neutral mercury in a magneto-optical trap utilizing the spin forbidden ¹S₀ → ³P₁ transition at 253.7 nm. We trapped two Hg isotopes, i.e. the bosonic ²⁰²Hg and the fermionic ¹⁹⁹Hg isotope, respectively. The temperature of the cold atom cloud was determined to be approximately 300 μK using a modified TOF-method. It is currently limited by the quality of the laser lock. Trapped neutral Hg has many interesting avenues such as a time standard and high precision measurements. Here, we discuss the possibilities of photo-association spectroscopy and the generation of ultra-cold Hg₂ dimers.