Experimental set-up for realising long-range interaction using strontium atoms in an optical lattice

[摘要] Ultracold interacting gases represent a new and exciting frontier for technological applications, such as quantum information processing, and they also offer an ideal test bench for condensed matter systems. This work examines the case of atoms in the alkaline earth metal family. These atoms can exhibit long-range dipolar interactions, generated via coherent exchange of photons on the 3P0 ! 3D1 transition. In particular, the progress in realising an experiment to study this coherent exchange of atoms in bosonic strontium is discussed. A review of the experimental techniques developed over the last 50 years to cool, manipulate and study atoms and molecules used in long-range interaction experiments is given from a historical viewpoint. Techniques to laser cool and trap atomic strontium are described, and a novel study of different geometries for magneto-optical traps (MOTs) is presented. This thesis describes the long-range interaction strontium experiment under development at the University of Birmingham. In particular, the characterisation of a self assembled Zeeman slower is presented, along with a novel repump scheme for the first stage of cooling using the 3P0 ! 3D1 transition. This work also reports the use of the 3P1 ! 3S1 transition to populate the 3P0 level, and the realisation of a monolithic (Interference Filter External Cavity Diode Laser) IFECDL. The new techniques that I present here have the potential to facilitate future studies of long-range interaction in strontium and other cold atoms experiments.

[发布机构] University:University of Birmingham;Department:School of Physics and Astronomy

[关键词] Q Science;QC Physics