Related papers: $\Lambda$-enhanced gray molasses in a tetrahedral …
Following the bichromatic sub-Doppler cooling scheme on the D1 line of 40K recently demonstrated in (Fernandes et al. 2012), we introduce a similar technique for 7Li atoms and obtain temperatures of 60 uK while capturing all of the 5x10^8…
Gray molasses is a powerful tool for sub-Doppler laser cooling of atoms to low temperatures. For alkaline atoms, this technique is commonly implemented with cooling lasers which are blue-detuned from either the D1 or D2 line. Here we show…
We report on the realization of sub-Doppler laser cooling of sodium atoms in gray molasses using the D1 optical transition ($3s\, ^2S_{1/2} \rightarrow 3p\, ^2P_{1/2}$) at 589.8 nm. The technique is applied to samples containing…
The grating magneto-optical trap (GMOT) requires only one beam and three planar diffraction gratings to form a cloud of cold atoms above the plane of the diffractors. Despite the complicated polarization arrangement, we demonstrate…
We present an efficient scheme to implement a gray optical molasses for sub-Doppler cooling of $^{6}$Li atoms with minimum experimental overhead. To integrate the $D_1$ light for the gray molasses (GM) cooling into the same optical setup…
We demonstrate the implementation of $\Lambda$-enhanced gray molasses cooling on the D$_2$ line of $^{85}$Rb atoms in an optical tweezer array. This technique yields lower atomic temperatures of 4.0(2) $\mu$K compared to red-detuned…
We report on the efficient gray molasses cooling of sodium atoms using the $D_{2}$ optical transition at 589.1 nm. Thanks to the hyperfine split about 6$\Gamma$ between the $|F'=2\rangle$ and $|F'=3\rangle$ in the excited state…
A planar triplet of diffraction gratings is used to transform a single laser beam into a four-beam tetrahedral magneto-optical trap. This `flat' pyramid diffractor geometry is ideal for future microfabrication. We demonstrate the technique…
A magneto-optical trap of cesium atoms was generated by applying a circularly polarized cooling laser beam onto a reflective two-dimensional diffraction grating with an aperture and by retroreflecting the incident beam passing through the…
We have experimentally studied sub-Doppler laser cooling in a magneto-optical trap for thulium atoms working at the wavelength of 410.6\,nm. Without any dedicated molasses period of sub-Doppler cooling, the cloud of $3\times 10^6$ atoms at…
We have used diffraction gratings to simplify the fabrication, and dramatically increase the atomic collection efficiency, of magneto-optical traps using micro-fabricated optics. The atom number enhancement was mainly due to the increased…
We have studied a general technique for laser cooling a cloud of polarized trapped atoms down to the Doppler temperature. A one-dimensional optical molasses using polarized light cools the axial motional degree of freedom of the atoms in…
Laser cooling to sub-Doppler temperatures by optical molasses is thought to be inhibited in atoms with unresolved, near-degenerate hyperfine structure in the excited state. We demonstrate that such cooling is possible in one to three…
We report on the transverse laser cooling of a magnetically guided beam of ultra cold chromium atoms. Radial compression by a tapering of the guide is employed to adiabatically heat the beam. Inside the tapered section heat is extracted…
Nanophotonic traps for cold atoms typically have trap volumes that are orders of magnitude smaller than, e.g., free-space optical tweezers. This makes efficient loading of these traps challenging, thereby limiting the total number of atoms…
We present new techniques in cooling 39K atoms using laser light close to the D1 transition. First, a new compressed-MOT configuration is taking advantage of gray molasses type cooling induced by blue-detuned D1 light. It yields an…
Trapping lithium with a big number in a simplified experimental setup has difficulties and challenges today. In this paper, we experimentally demonstrate the enhancement of \textsuperscript{6}Li trapping efficiency in a three-dimensional…
We have imaged lithium-6 thousands of times in an optical tweezer using $\Lambda$-enhanced gray molasses cooling light. Despite being the lightest alkali, with a recoil temperature of 3.5 $\mu$K, we achieve an imaging survival of…
We report on an apparatus for cooling and trapping of neutral dysprosium. We characterize and optimize the performance of our Zeeman slower and 2D molasses cooling of the atomic beam by means of Doppler spectroscopy on a 136 kHz broad…
We report on reaching sub-Doppler temperatures of $^{40}$K in a single-chamber setup using a dispenser-based potassium source with natural (0.012$\%$ of $^{40}$K) isotopic composition. With gray molasses cooling on the $D_1$-line following…