Fast production of Bose-Einstein condensates of metastable helium

Q. Bouton (1) , R. Chang (1) , A. L. Hoendervanger (1) , F. Nogrette (1) , Alain Aspect (1) , C. I. Westbrook (1) , D. Clément (1)

1 Laboratoire Charles Fabry / Optique atomique

We report on the Bose-Einstein condensation of metastable Helium-4 atoms using a hybrid approach , consisting of a magnetic quadrupole and a crossed optical dipole trap. In our setup we cross the phase transition with 2 × 10^6 atoms, and we obtain pure condensates of 5 × 10^5 atoms in the optical trap. This novel approach to cooling Helium-4 provides enhanced cycle stability, large optical access to the atoms and results in production of a condensate every 6 seconds – a factor 3 faster than the state-of-the-art. This speed-up will dramatically reduce the data acquisition time needed for the measurement of many particle correlations, made possible by the ability of metastable Helium to be detected individually.

Domains: Soft Condensed Matter [cond-mat.soft]

Q. Bouton, R. Chang, A. L. Hoendervanger, F. Nogrette, Alain Aspect, et al.. Fast production of Bose-Einstein condensates of metastable helium. Physical Review A : Atomic, molecular, and optical physics [1990-2015], 2015, 91 (6), pp.061402(R). ⟨10.1103/PhysRevA.91.061402⟩. ⟨hal-01159883⟩