First Ytterbium BEC in Hamburg

13 June 2012

Photo: AG Sengstock

Wednesday night, June 13th 2012, we achieved our first BEC of 174Yb containing about 10000 atoms. In this experiment we prepared about 4x107 atoms in a MOT on the narrow 1S0-3P1 intercombination transition at 556 nm, which was loaded from a 2D-MOT operating on the broad 1S0-1P1 transition at 399 nm. We then transferred the atoms into a crossed dipole trap and cooled evaporatively to quantum degeneracy. The figure shows the buildup of a BEC as we cooled across the BEC phase transition.

Absorption pictures of 174Yb showing the transition from a thermal cloud to a almost pure Bose-Einstein condensate (left to right).