A permanent-magnet Zeeman slower and magneto-optical trap for calcium atoms for ultracold Rydberg physics

TL;DR

This paper details the development of a calcium atom cooling and trapping system, including a permanent-magnet Zeeman slower and MOT, enabling high Rydberg state excitation for ultracold Rydberg physics research.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel setup combining a permanent-magnet Zeeman slower with a MOT for calcium atoms, optimized for ultracold Rydberg experiments.

Findings

Achieved calcium atom cooling to 1.0(3) mK

Demonstrated efficient Rydberg excitation and spectroscopy

Benchmarking shows performance comparable to state-of-the-art systems

Abstract

We report the construction and characterization of an experimental setup for producing a cold gas of $^{40}$Ca atoms and excite them to high Rydberg states with a resonant three-photon-excitation scheme. The apparatus comprises four stages, each designed in-house. An oven heated to $\sim 500^\circ$C generates an atomic beam that is collimated by a capillary stack. The beam is sent into a passive, permanent-magnet-based Zeeman slower that reduces the atomic velocity to $30$ m/s. The slow atoms are captured in a magneto-optical trap (MOT) and cooled to $1.0(3)$ mK with a trapping time of $16(2)$ ms. Ground-state atoms in the cold gas are excited to high Rydberg states via resonant excitation through the intermediate $4s4p\, ^1P_1$ and $4s4d\, ^1D_2$ states. The MOT is operated at the center of an electrode stack, which serves to apply continuous and pulsed electric fields and field-ionize the Rydberg atoms for detection. We benchmark our MOT against previous implementations and find its performance consistent with state-of-the-art results in terms of temperature and trapping lifetime. Finally, we demonstrate Rydberg spectroscopy of calcium, confirming the system's suitability for ultracold Rydberg physics experiments.