Eur. Phys. J. D (2014) 68: 92
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2014-40389-y

Regular Article

Guided and focused slow atomic beam from a 2 dimensional magneto optical trap

Laboratoire Aimé Cotton, CNRS, Université Paris-Sud, ENS Cachan, Bât. 505, 91405 Orsay, France

^a e-mail: bruneau.yoann@gmail.com

Received: 4 July 2013
Received in final form: 7 November 2013
Published online: 23 April 2014

Abstract

We report experimental results which demonstrate how a single laser can be used to both accelerate and guide caesium atoms initially trapped in a two dimensional magneto-optical trap (2D-MOT). The atomic beam size and velocity can be modified using both the laser power and detuning as parameters. In particular, using a 750 mW laser detuned 10 GHz from resonance, we demonstrate that it is possible to focus an atomic beam to a size of 0.4 mm as far as 60 cm from the output of the 2D-MOT with a flux on the order of 3 × 10⁹ atoms/s.