1212.4108 (Igor Gotlibovych et al.)

A compact single-chamber apparatus for Bose-Einstein condensation of
$^87$Rb    [PDF]

Igor Gotlibovych, Tobias F. Schmidutz, Stuart Moulder, Robert L. D. Campbell, Naaman Tammuz, Richard J. Fletcher, Alexander L. Gaunt, Scott Beattie, Robert P. Smith, Zoran Hadzibabic

We describe a simple and compact single-chamber apparatus for robust production of $^87$Rb Bose-Einstein condensates. The apparatus is built from off-the-shelf components and allows production of quasi-pure condensates of > $3\times 10^5$ atoms in < 30 s. This is achieved using a hybrid trap created by a quadrupole magnetic field and a single red-detuned laser beam [Y.-J. Lin et al., Phys. Rev. A 79, 063631 (2009)]. In the same apparatus we also achieve condensation in an optically plugged quadrupole trap [K. B. Davis et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 3969 (1995)] and show that as little as 70 mW of plug-laser power is sufficient for condensation, making it viable to pursue this approach using inexpensive diode lasers.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1212.4108