The influence of optical molasses in loading a shallow optical trap

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that optical molasses can load twice as many 85Rb atoms into a shallow optical trap compared to a magneto-optical trap, due to higher loading rates, with similar loss rates during the process.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of atom loading efficiencies from optical molasses versus MOT into a FORT, highlighting the advantages of molasses for trapping.

Findings

Optical molasses achieves higher atom load rates than MOT.

Loss rates during loading are similar for both methods.

Optimizing molasses loading doubles the number of trapped atoms.

Abstract

We have examined loading of 85Rb atoms into a shallow Far-Off-Resonance Trap (FORT) from an optical molasses and compared it to loading from a Magneto-Optical Trap (MOT). We found that substantially more atoms could be loaded into the FORT via an optical molasses as compared to loading from the MOT alone. To determine why this was the case, we measured the rate of atoms loaded into the FORT and the losses from the FORT during the loading process. For both MOT and molasses loading, we examined atom load rate and losses over a range of detunings as well as hyperfine pump powers. We found that the losses induced during MOT loading were essentially the same as the losses induced during molasses loading at the same MOT/molasses detuning. In contrast, load rate of the molasses was higher than that of a MOT at a given detuning. This caused the optical molasses to be able to load more atoms than the MOT. Optimization of FORT loading form an optical molasses improved the number of atoms we could trap by a factor of two over that of optimal loading from a MOT.