Two-Color Magneto-Optical Trap with Small Magnetic Field for Ytterbium

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a two-color magneto-optical trap for ytterbium atoms operating at low magnetic field gradients, enabling efficient trapping using separate laser transitions and showing robustness against laser power imbalance.

Contribution

It introduces a novel two-color MOT technique for ytterbium that functions effectively at low magnetic fields, unlike conventional methods.

Findings

Successfully trapped 4.0 x 10^5 ytterbium atoms from an atomic beam.

Operates effectively at magnetic field gradients as low as 2 G/cm.

Demonstrates robustness to laser power imbalance.

Abstract

We report a two-color magneto-optical trap (MOT) for ytterbium atoms operating at a low magnetic field gradient down to 2 G/cm where a conventional MOT using the singlet transition (6s^2 1S0 -> 6s6p 1P1) is unable to trap atoms. By simultaneously applying laser light on both the broad-linewidth singlet transition and the narrow-linewidth triplet transition (6s^2 1S0 -> 6s6p 3P1), we load and trap 4.0 x 10^5 atoms directly from an atomic beam at 700 K. In the two-color MOT, the slowing and trapping functions are separately performed by the singlet transition light and the triplet transition light, respectively. The two-color MOT is highly robust against laser power imbalance even at very low magnetic field gradients.