Optical and Magnetic Control for Type-II MOTs

Abstract

An ultracold mixture of cesium and lithium provides a clean and tunable platform for the study of highly correlated quantum systems. This thesis highlights the progress towards the design, construction, and optimization of our experimental apparatus for producing ultracold matter. I was able to amplify a narrow (∼100 kHz) laser to produce hundreds of mW of usable light using optical injection locking for both cesium-133 and lithium-6. I also developed a magnetic coil winding jig used to create the necessary magnetic coils for our experiments. We were able to achieve a type-II blue-detuned MOT of cesium, being one of the first in the world to do so. We quote axial and radial temperatures of 36(9) μK and 22(5) μK, respectively, with a phase space density (PSD) on the order of 10⁻⁷. We use our preliminary data as a stepping stone towards publication-quality measurements, allowing us to appropriately discuss our findings. The work provides a foundation for further cooling, trapping, and quantum simulation experiments in the future.