Three dimensional cooling and trapping with a narrow line

Thierry Chaneliere (1) , Ling Xiang He (2) , Robin Kaiser (3) , David Wilkowski (3)

1 LAC - Laboratoire Aimé Cotton
2 State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics
3 INLN - Institut Non Linéaire de Nice Sophia-Antipolis

The intercombination line of Strontium at 689nm is successfully used in laser cooling to reach the photon recoil limit with Doppler cooling in a magneto-optical traps (MOT). In this paper we present a systematic study of the loading efficiency of such a MOT. Comparing the experimental results to a simple model allows us to discuss the actual limitation of our apparatus. We also study in detail the final MOT regime emphasizing the role of gravity on the position, size and temperature along the vertical and horizontal directions. At large laser detuning, one finds an unusual situation where cooling and trapping occur in the presence of a high bias magnetic field.

Mots clés: atomes froids; strontium

Domaines: Physique Atomique [physics.atom-ph]

Thierry Chaneliere, Ling Xiang He, Robin Kaiser, David Wilkowski. Three dimensional cooling and trapping with a narrow line. 2007. ⟨hal-00140366v2⟩