A compact and efficient strontium oven for laser-cooling experiments

TL;DR

This paper presents a compact, energy-efficient strontium oven designed for laser-cooling experiments, achieving high atomic flux with low power consumption and long operational lifetime.

Contribution

The authors introduce a novel, compact strontium oven with optimized design for high flux and low power, suitable for various alkali and alkaline earth metals.

Findings

Achieved a flux of 1.0×10^13 s^-1 cm^-2 at 450°C

Power consumption of only 36 W

Estimated continuous operation lifetime of 10 years

Abstract

Here we describe a compact and efficient strontium oven well suited for laser-cooling experiments. Novel design solutions allowed us to produce a collimated strontium atomic beam with a flux of 1.0\times10^13 s^-1 cm^-2 at the oven temperature of 450 {\deg}C, reached with an electrical power consumption of 36 W. The oven is based on a stainless-steel reservoir, filled with 6 g of metallic strontium, electrically heated in a vacuum environment by a tantalum wire threaded through an alumina multi-bore tube. The oven can be hosted in a standard DN40CF cube and has an estimated continuous operation lifetime of 10 years. This oven can be used for other alkali and alkaline earth metals with essentially no modifications.