Optical Loading of Magnetic Traps

Cold Beam

People

• David Patterson
• Julia Rasmussen

Overview

We realize a continuous, high flux, cold molecular or atomic beam using buffer gas cooling techniques. Recent efforts have focused on creating such a source by mixing hot vapor (up to 600K) with cold neon buffer gas (15K) before emitting the mixture in a high flux beam. Neon buffer gas produces a beam with a forward velocity distribution and low energy tail comparable to much colder helium based beams. Such a beam may be a good starting point for laser cooling, cold collision studies, and trapping . Recent efforts have focused on magnetic trapping of potassium, but previous work realized cold beams of molecular oxygen and deuterated ammonia molecules.

Recent Publications

• Intense Atomic and Molecular Beams via Neon Buffer Gas Cooling, D. Patterson, J. Rasmussen, and J. M. Doyle, to be published by New Journal of Physics 2009).
• Bright, Guided Molecular Beam with Hydrodynamic Enhancement, D. Patterson and J.M. Doyle. J of Chem Phys 126, 154307 (2007).