Fast production of ultracold sodium gases using light--induced desorption and optical trapping

Emmanuel Mimoun (1) , Luigi de Sarlo (1) , David Jacob (1) , Jean Dalibard (1) , Fabrice Gerbier (1)

1 LKB (Lhomond) - Laboratoire Kastler Brossel

In this paper, we report on the production of a Bose--Einstein condensate (BEC) of sodium using light--induced desorption as an atomic source. We load about 2X10^7 atoms in a MOT from this source with a ~6 s loading time constant. The MOT lifetime can be kept around 27 s by turning off the desorbing light after loading. We show that the pressure drops down by a factor of 40 in less than 100 ms after the extinction of the desorbing light, restoring the low background pressure for evaporation. Using this technique, a \na BEC with 10^4 atoms is produced after a 6 s evaporation in an optical dipole trap.

Domaines: Gaz Quantiques [cond-mat.quant-gas]

Emmanuel Mimoun, Luigi de Sarlo, David Jacob, Jean Dalibard, Fabrice Gerbier. Fast production of ultracold sodium gases using light--induced desorption and optical trapping. Physical Review A : Atomic, molecular, and optical physics [1990-2015], 2010, 81 (2), pp.023631. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevA.81.023631⟩. ⟨hal-00436570v2⟩