Lambda-enhanced grey molasses on the D2 transition of Rubidium-87 atoms

Year: 2018

Authors: Rosi S., Burchianti A., Conclave S., Naik D.S., Roati G., Fort C., Minardi F.

Autors Affiliation: LENS European Laboratory for Non-Linear Spectroscopy, Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università di Firenze, Sesto Fiorentino, 50019, Italy; Istituto Nazionale di Ottica, INO-CNR, Sesto Fiorentino, 50019, Italy; LP2N, Laboratoire Photonique, Numérique et Nanosciences, Université Bordeaux-IOGS-CNRS, Talence, F-33400, France

Abstract: Laser cooling based on dark states, i.e. states decoupled from light, has proven to be effective to increase the phase-space density of cold trapped atoms. Dark-states cooling requires open atomic transitions, in contrast to the ordinary laser cooling used for example in magneto-optical traps (MOTs), which operate on closed atomic transitions. For alkali atoms, dark-states cooling is therefore commonly operated on the D-1 transition nS(1/2) -> nP(1/2). We show that, for Rb-87, thanks to the large hyperfine structure separations the use of this transition is not strictly necessary and that \”quasi-dark state\” cooling is efficient also on the D-2 line, 5S(1/2) -> 5P(3/2). We report temperatures as low as (4.0 +/- 0.3) mu K and an increase of almost an order of magnitude in the phase space density with respect to ordinary laser sub-Doppler cooling.

Journal/Review: SCIENTIFIC REPORTS

Volume: 8      Pages from: 1301-1  to: 1301-9

More Information: This work was supported by MIUR (PRIN 2010LLKJBX) and by FP7 Cooperation STREP Project EQuaM (Grant no. 323714). We thank G. Colzi for useful discussions, C. D
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-19814-z

Citations: 36
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