A versatile dual-species Zeeman slower for caesium and ytterbium

TL;DR

This paper presents a versatile dual-species Zeeman slower for cesium and ytterbium, capable of efficient atom deceleration and loading into MOTs, with potential adaptability to other alkali and alkaline earth metals.

Contribution

The design, construction, and operation of a dual-species Zeeman slower adaptable for multiple alkali and alkaline earth metals, with demonstrated high atom loading efficiency.

Findings

Loads over 10^9 Yb atoms into MOTs within seconds.

Loads over 10^8 Cs atoms into MOTs within seconds.

Effective solutions for real-world performance issues of Zeeman slowers.

Abstract

We describe the design, construction and operation of a versatile dual-species Zeeman slower for both Cs and Yb, which is easily adaptable for use with other alkali metals and alkaline earths. With the aid of analytic models and numerical simulation of decelerator action, we highlight several real-world problems affecting the performance of a slower and discuss effective solutions. To capture Yb into a magneto-optical trap (MOT), we use the broad $^1S_0$ to $^1P_1$ transition at 399 nm for the slower and the narrow $^1S_0$ to $^3P_1$ intercombination line at 556 nm for the MOT. The Cs MOT and slower both use the D2 line ($6^2S_{1/2}$ to $6^2P_{3/2}$) at 852 nm. We demonstrate that within a few seconds the Zeeman slower loads more than $10^9$ Yb atoms and $10^8$ Cs atoms into their respective MOTs. These are ideal starting numbers for further experiments on ultracold mixtures and molecules.