Hannover 2013 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 56: Poster III
Q 56.58: Poster
Donnerstag, 21. März 2013, 16:00–18:30, Empore Lichthof
A CO2-laser optical dipole trap for ultracold erbium atoms — •Henning Brammer, Jens Ulitzsch, Matthias Rehberger, and Martin Weitz — Institut für Angewandte Physik, Universität Bonn
The erbium atom has a 4f12 6s2 3H6 electronic ground state with a large angular momentum of L = 5. So far, most atomic quantum gases have been realized with a sperical symmetric (L=0) S-ground state configuration, for which in far detuned laser fields with detuning above the upper state fine structure splitting the trapping potential is determined by the scalar electronic polarizability. For an erbium quantum gas with its L > 0 ground state, the trapping potential also for far detuned dissipation-less trapping laser fields becomes dependent on the internal atomic state (i.e. spin). We report on progress in an ongoing experiment directed at the generation of an atomic erbium Bose-Einstein condensate by evaporative cooling in a quasistatic optical dipole trap generated by the focused beam derived from a CO2-laser operating near 10.6µm wavelength. The atoms are loaded into the dipole trap from a magneto-optical trap (MOT), which itself is loaded from a Zeeman-slowed atomic beam. For the MOT, the experiment uses a single laser frequency tuned to the red of the 400.91nm cooling transition. No repumping radiation is required for the MOT operation, despite the complex energy level structure of the erbium atom.