Gray molasses cooling of $^{39}$K to a high phase-space density

We present new techniques in cooling $^{39}$K atoms using laser light close to the D1 transition. First, a new compressed-MOT configuration is taking advantage of gray molasses type cooling induced by blue-detuned D1 light. It yields an optimized density of atoms. Then, we use pure D1 gray molasses...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Europhysics letters 2013-12, Vol.104
Main Authors: Salomon, Guillaume, Fouché, Lauriane, Wang, Pengjun, Aspect, Alain, Bouyer, Philippe, Bourdel, Thomas
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Atomic Physics
Optics
Physics
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:We present new techniques in cooling $^{39}$K atoms using laser light close to the D1 transition. First, a new compressed-MOT configuration is taking advantage of gray molasses type cooling induced by blue-detuned D1 light. It yields an optimized density of atoms. Then, we use pure D1 gray molasses to further cool the atoms to an ultra-low temperature of 6\,$\mu$K. The resulting phase-space density is $2\times 10^{-4}$ and will ease future experiments with ultracold potassium. As an example, we use it to directly load up to $3\times 10^7$ atoms in a far detuned optical trap, a result that opens the way to the all-optical production of potassium degenerate gases.
ISSN:0295-5075
1286-4854
DOI:10.1209/0295-5075/104/63002