Nature Communications: Photonic integrated beam delivery for a rubidium 3D magneto-optical trap
Ultra-cold atoms are generated in the lab using optical trapping and cooling. Here the authors implement a fiber-coupled photonic integrated circuit for a beam delivery to a three-dimensional magneto-optical trap where a million rubidium atoms are cooled near 200 μK.
We report the demonstration of a 87Rb 3D-MOT using a fiber-coupled photonic integrated circuit to deliver all beams to cool and trap > 1 ×106 atoms to near 200 μK. The silicon nitride photonic circuit transforms fiber-coupled 780 nm cooling and repump light via waveguides to three mm-width non-diverging free-space cooling and repump beams directly to the rubidium cell. This planar, CMOS foundry-compatible integrated beam delivery is compatible with other components, such as lasers and modulators, promising system-on-chip solutions for cold atom applications.
