Partially ferromagnetic electromagnet for trapping and cooling neutral atoms to quantum degeneracy

Marie Fauquembergue (1) , Jean-Félix Riou (1) , William Guerin (1) , Sadiq Rangwala (1) , Frédéric Moron (1) , André Villing (1) , Yann Le Coq (1) , Michel Lécrivain (2) , Philippe Bouyer (3) , Alain Aspect (3)

1 LCFIO - Laboratoire Charles Fabry de l'Institut d'Optique
2 SATIE - Systèmes et Applications des Technologies de l'Information et de l'Energie
3 laboratoire Charles Fabry de l'Institut d'Optique / Optique atomique

We have developed a compact partially ferromagnetic electromagnet to produce a Ioffe-Pritchard trap for neutral atoms. Our structure permits strong magnetic confinement with low power consumption. Compared to the previous iron-core electromagnet, it allows for easy compensation of remnant fields and very high stability, along with cost-effective realization and compactness. We describe and characterize our apparatus and demonstrate trapping and cooling of Rb 87 atoms to quantum degeneracy. Pure Bose-Einstein condensates containing 10^6 atoms are routinely realized on a half-minute cycle. In addition we test the stability of the magnetic trap by producing atom lasers.

Mots clés: ferromagnetic electromagnet; atom trapping; Bose-Einstein condensate; atom laser

Domaines: Autre [cond-mat.other]

Marie Fauquembergue, Jean-Félix Riou, William Guerin, Sadiq Rangwala, Frédéric Moron, et al.. Partially ferromagnetic electromagnet for trapping and cooling neutral atoms to quantum degeneracy. 2005. ⟨hal-00005837v1⟩