Frankfurt 2006 – scientific programme
Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Downloads | Help
Q: Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 49: Quantengase V
Q 49.11: Talk
Wednesday, March 15, 2006, 18:00–18:15, HVI
Ultracold Atoms in Optical Dipole Potentials — •Johanna Nes1,2, Wouter van Drunen1,2, Oliver Wille1,2, Norbert Herschbach1,2, Anna-Lena Gehrmann1,2, Wolfgang Ertmer1, and Gerhard Birkl2 — 1Institut für Quantenoptik, Universität Hannover, Welfengarten 1, D-30167 Hannover — 2Institut für angewandte Physik, TU Darmstadt, Schlossgartenstr. 7, D-64289 Darmstadt
We present experiments with cold neutral atoms in optical dipole potentials. A crucial advantage of optical trapping is the great variety of geometries that can be realized such as multiple beam traps or dipole trap arrays. Since the dipole force does not depend on magnetic properties, storage of atoms in different mF-states is possible as well as the superimposal of an arbitrary magnetic field. This feature allows us to extend our past investigations on the collisional dynamics of magnetically trapped metastable neon atoms to experiments under the influence of varying, strong magnetic fields. Moreover, collisional properties of different internal states can be studied. For these purposes, a far-detuned dipole trap created by a fiberlaser at a wavelength of 1064 nm has been set up und successful loading of neon atoms from a MOT has been achieved. In a second experiment, a crossed beam trap derived from an Yb:YAG-disklaser (λ=1030 nm) is loaded with 87Rb-atoms. Subsequent evaporative cooling by lowering the trapping power yields an increase in phase-space density by several orders of magnitude. This part of our work aims at studying the coherence properties of ultracold thermal atoms and degenerate quantum gases in miniaturized optical guiding and storing structures created by microfabricated optical elements.