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arXiv · 1401.4156

Magneto-Optical Trapping of Holmium Atoms

J. Miao·J. Hostetter·G. Stratis·M. Saffman
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Abstract

We demonstrate sub-Doppler laser cooling and magneto-optical trapping of the rare earth element Holmium. Atoms are loaded from an atomic beam source and captured in six-beam $σ_+ - σ_-$ molasses using a strong $J=15/2 \leftrightarrow J=17/2$ cycling transition at $λ=410.5 \rm nm$. Due to the small difference in hyperfine splittings and Landé $g$-factors in the lower and upper levels of the cooling transition the MOT is self-repumped without additional repump light, and deep sub-Doppler cooling is achieved with the magnetic trap turned on. We measure the leakage out of the cycling transition to metastable states and find a branching ratio $\sim 10^{-5}$ which is adequate for state resolved measurements on hyperfine encoded qubits.

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J. Miao, J. Hostetter, G. Stratis, M. Saffman. 2014-03-24. Magneto-Optical Trapping of Holmium Atoms. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreva.89.041401

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