1999/08/06 by G. Modugno, Giovanni Carlo Modugno, Craig Benko +5 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Frequency and Time Standards #Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreva.60.r3373
arxiv created 1999/08/06 · openalex publication_date 1999/11/01 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We report laser cooling of fermionic 40K atoms, with temperatures down to (15\ifmmode±\else\textpm\fi5) \ensuremathμK, for an enriched sample trapped in a magneto-optical trap 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 2 of the lowest realizable rms velocity (\ensuremath∼3.5vrec) in three-dimensional 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 40K atoms.