A compact high-flux cold atom beam source

TL;DR

This paper presents a compact, high-flux cesium atom beam source using a retro-reflected 2D MOT with an innovative pushing field, achieving high loading rates with low laser power.

Contribution

The authors introduce a novel tilting technique of 2D MOT collimators to enhance 3D MOT loading rates in a compact setup.

Findings

Achieved 8×10^9 atoms/s loading rate with 20 mW laser power.

Maximum efficiency of 6.2×10^11 atoms/s/W below saturation.

Developed a compact high-flux Cs atom source with improved performance.

Abstract

We report on an efficient and compact high-flux Cs atom beam source based on a retro-reflected two-dimensional magneto-optical trap (2D MOT). We realize an effective pushing field component by tilting the 2D MOT collimators towards a separate three-dimensional magneto-optical trap (3D MOT) in ultra-high vacuum. This technique significantly improved 3D MOT loading rates to greater than $8 \times 10^9$ atoms/s using only 20 mW of total laser power for the source. When operating below saturation, we achieve a maximum efficiency of $6.2 \times 10^{11}$ atoms/s/W.