Eur. Phys. J. D (2015) 69: 52
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2015-50843-y

Regular Article

Efficient production of an ⁸⁷Rb F = 2, m_F = 2 Bose-Einstein condensate in a hybrid trap

LaserLaB, Department of Physics and Astronomy, VU University, De Boelelaan 1081, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands

^a e-mail: s.knoop@vu.nl

Received: 24 November 2014
Received in final form: 16 January 2015
Published online: 19 February 2015

Abstract

We have realized Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of ⁸⁷Rb in the F = 2, m_F = 2 hyperfine substate in a hybrid trap, consisting of a quadrupole magnetic field and a single optical dipole beam. The symmetry axis of the quadrupole magnetic trap coincides with the optical beam axis, which gives stronger axial confinement than previous hybrid traps. After loading 2 × 10⁶ atoms at 14 μK from a quadrupole magnetic trap into the hybrid trap, we perform efficient forced evaporation and reach the onset of BEC at a temperature of 0.5 μK and with 4 × 10⁵ atoms. We also obtain thermal clouds of 1 × 10⁶ atoms below 1 μK in a pure single beam optical dipole trap, by ramping down the magnetic field gradient after evaporative cooling in the hybrid trap.