Eur. Phys. J. D (2015) 69: 226
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2015-60288-y

Regular Article

A high flux source of cold strontium atoms

¹ Centre for Quantum Technologies, National University of Singapore, 117543 Singapore, Singapore
² PAP, School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, 637371 Singapore, Singapore
³ MajuLab, CNRS-University of Nice-NUS-NTU International Joint Research Unit, UMI 3654, Singapore

^a Present address: NIM, Beijing, P.R. China.
^b Present address: Earth Observatory of Singapore, NTU, Singapore.
^c Present address: SYRTE, Paris, France.
^d e-mail: david.wilkowski@ntu.edu.sg

Received: 14 May 2015
Received in final form: 18 August 2015
Published online: 8 October 2015

Abstract

We describe an experimental apparatus capable of achieving a high loading rate of strontium atoms in a magneto-optical trap operating in a high vacuum environment. A key innovation of this setup is a two dimensional magneto-optical trap deflector located after a Zeeman slower. We find a loading rate of 6 × 10⁹ s^-1 whereas the lifetime of the magnetically trapped atoms in the ³P₂ state is 54 s.