English

Sub-Doppler Laser Cooling of Fermionic K-40 Atoms

Statistical Mechanics 2009-10-31 v1

Abstract

We report laser cooling of fermionic K-40 atoms, with temperatures down to (15 +/- 5) microK, for an enriched sample trapped in a MOT and additionaly cooled in optical molasses. This temperature is a factor of 10 below the Doppler-cooling limit and corresponds to an rms velocity within a factor of two of the lowest realizable rms velocity (~3.5v rec) in 3D optical molasses. Realization of such low atom temperatures, up to now only accessible with evaporative cooling techniques, is an important precursor to producing a degenerate Fermi gas of K-40 atoms.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/9908102,
  title  = {Sub-Doppler Laser Cooling of Fermionic K-40 Atoms},
  author = {G. Modugno and C. Benko and P. Hannaford and G. Roati and M. Inguscio},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/9908102},
  year   = {2009}
}