High-performance, additively-manufactured atomic spectroscopy apparatus for portable quantum technologies

We demonstrate a miniaturised and highly robust system for performing Doppler-free spectroscopy on thermal atomic vapour for three frequencies as required for cold atom-based quantum technologies. The application of additive manufacturing techniques, together with efficient use of optical components, produce a compact, stable optical system, with a volume of 0.089 L and a weight of 120 g. The device occupies less than a tenth of the volume of, and is considerably lower cost than, conventional spectroscopic systems, but also offers excellent stability against environmental disturbances. We characterise the response of the system to changes in environmental temperature between 7 and 35 ^∘C and exposure to vibrations between 0 - 2000 Hz, finding that the system can reliably perform spectroscopic measurements despite substantial vibrational noise and temperature changes. Our results show that 3D-printed optical systems are an excellent solution for portable quantum technologies.

Versatile cold atom source for multi-species experiments

We present a dual-species oven and Zeeman slower setup capable of producing slow, high-flux atomic beams for loading magneto-optical traps. Our compact and versatile system is based on electronic switching between different magnetic field profiles and is applicable to a wide range of multi-species experiments. We give details of the vacuum setup, coils, and simple electronic circuitry. In addition, we demonstrate the performance of our system by optimized, sequential loading of magneto-optical traps of lithium-6 and cesium-133.

Role of interactions in 87Rb-40K Bose-Fermi mixtures in a 3D optical lattice

We investigate the effect of interspecies interaction on a degenerate mixture of bosonic 87Rb and fermionic 40K atoms in a three-dimensional optical lattice potential. Using a Feshbach resonance, the 87Rb-40K interaction is tuned over a wide range. Through an analysis of the 87Rb momentum distribution, we find a pronounced asymmetry between strong repulsion and strong attraction. In the latter case, we observe a marked shift in the superfluid to Mott insulator transition, which we attribute to a renormalization of the Bose-Hubbard parameters due to self-trapping.