Ultracold Erbium

• Seo, B., Chen, P., Chen, Z., Yuan, W., Huang, M., Du, S. and Jo, G. Efficient production of a narrow-line erbium MOT with two-stage slowing. Phy. Rev. A 102 013319 (2020)Journal arXiv:1912.12649 (2019) preprint

We describe an experimental setup for producing a large cold erbium (Er) sample in a narrow-line magneto-optical trap (MOT) in a simple and efficient way. We implement a pair of angled slowing beams with respect to the Zeeman slower axis, and further slow down atoms exiting from the Zeeman slower. The second-stage slowing beams effectively increase the capture velocity of the narrow-line MOT. This scheme is particularly useful when the Zeeman slower is operated at low power without the transverse cooling in the system, wherein we significantly improve the loading efficiency into the MOT and are able to trap more than 108 atoms in the narrow-line MOT of 166Er atoms. This work highlights our implementation that greatly simplifies laser cooling and trapping of Er atoms and also benefits other similar elements.

Ultracold Polar molecules

• Aden Zhenhao Lam, Claire Warner, Niccolò Bigagli, Stephan Roschinski, Weijun Yuan, Ian Stevenson, Sebastian Will. Compact Two-Dimensional Magneto-Optical Trap for Ultracold Atom Setups arXiv:2012.06688 (2020) [preprint] (https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.06688)

We report on the design, implementation, and performance of a novel compact two-dimensional (2D) magneto-optical trap. Our setup features cesium dispensers that are directly integrated into a small-volume vacuum chamber. We observe a peak atom flux of 4×10^8 atoms/s, which is comparable to the performance of more complex cesium sources. Using a numeric model, we analyze the working principle of our setup and find that the majority of the atom flux results from direct capture of atoms from the dispenser jet, allowing for economic use of the dispensers. Our design can be readily extended to a broad range of atomic species, making an important contribution to simplification and standardization of ultracold atom setups.