Princeton Quantum Seminar
Scott Eustice, UC- Berkeley
"Laser cooling and trapping of titanium"

Abstract: I present our recent work realizing a magneto optical trap (MOT) of the 3 bosonic isotopes of titanium (Ti) atoms for the first time. The properties of Ti are particularly well suited to studying spin-orbit coupled quantum gases and to applying optical telecom laser technology to precision metrology. We directly load the MOT from a thermal source of Ti at 1400 K, trapping 800,000 atoms at a temperature of 80 uK. We constrain the one and two-body loss rates of trapped Ti atoms, showing both that no repump lasers are needed to operate the MOT and that two-body losses should not limit our ability to load more atoms in the future. We also describe our planned next steps to produce larger, colder, and longer-lived samples of Ti, as well as our plans to trap the fermionic isotopes of Ti. With those ingredients, we will be able to study Ti-Ti interactions, produce quantum degenerate gases of Ti, and begin studies of the quantum phases present in spin-orbit coupled Fermi gasses.

Host: Professor Jeff Thompson, Electrical & Computer Engineering