2013/07/31 by Vasiliki Bolpasi, V. Bolpasi, Nikolaos K. Efremidis +11
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Frequency and Time Standards #Atom (system on chip) #Atom laser #Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research #Atomic physics #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Collimated light #Coupling (piping) #Hyperfine structure #Laser #Optics #Physics #Thermal #cond-mat.quant-gas #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1367-2630/16/3/033036
20 pages, 9 figures, supplementary material online at http://www.bec.gr
arxiv created 2013/11/25 · openalex publication_date 2014/03/28 · arxiv updated 2015/06/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We present a novel, ultra-bright atom laser and an ultra-cold thermal atom beam. Using rf-radiation we strongly couple the magnetic hyperfine levels of 87 Rb atoms in a trapped Bose–Einstein condensate. The resulting time-dependent adiabatic potential forms a trap, which at low rf-frequencies opens just below the condensate and thus allows an extremely bright well-collimated atom laser beam to emerge. As opposed to traditional atom lasers based on weak coupling of the magnetic hyperfine levels, this technique allows us to outcouple atoms at an arbitrarily large rate. We achieve a flux of 4 × 10 7 atom s -1 , a seven fold increase compared to the brightest atom lasers to date. Furthermore, we demonstrate by two orders of magnitude the coldest thermal atom beam (200 nK).