Abstract
Chip-scale atomic devices built around micro-fabricated alkali vapor cells are at the forefront of compact metrology and atomic sensors. We demonstrate a micro-fabricated vapor cell that is actively pumped to ultra-high-vacuum (UHV) to achieve laser cooling. A grating magneto-optical trap (GMOT) is incorporated with a 4 mm-thick Si/glass vacuum cell to demonstrate the feasibility of a fully miniaturized laser cooling platform. A two-step optical excitation process in rubidium is used to overcome surface-scatter limitations to the GMOT imaging. The unambiguous miniaturization and form-customizability made available with micro-fabricated UHV cells provide a promising platform for future compact cold-atom sensors.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 054001 |
| Number of pages | 4 |
| Journal | Applied Physics Letters |
| Volume | 117 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 3 Aug 2020 |
Funding
The authors thank J. W. Pollock and W. McGehee for careful reading of the manuscript before submission. The authors thank A. Hansen, Y.-J. Chen, and M. Shuker for fruitful discussions. R.B was supported by the NIST Guest Researcher program and Délégation Générale de l’Armement (DGA). J.P.M. gratefully acknowledges support from the English Speaking Union and Lindemann Fellowship. G.D.M. was supported under the financial assistance (Award No. 70NANB18H006) from the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology. A.S.A, P.F.G, and E.R. gratefully acknowledge funding from the EPSRC through Grant Nos. EP/M013294/1 and EP/T001046/1 and Kelvin Nanotechnology for the fabrication of the non-standard grating chip.
Keywords
- atomic devices
- alkali vapor cells
- GMOT imaging