Abstract
We report on an efficient production scheme for a large quantum degenerate sample of fermionic lithium. The approach is based on our previous work on narrow-line laser cooling resulting in a high phase-space density of up to . This allows utilizing a large-volume crossed optical dipole trap with a total power of , leading to high loading efficiency and trapped atoms. The same optical trapping configuration is used for rapid adiabatic transport over a distance of in , and subsequent evaporative cooling. With optimized evaporation we achieve a degenerate Fermi gas with atoms at a temperature of , corresponding to . Furthermore, the performance is demonstrated by evaporation near a broad Feshbach resonance creating a molecular Bose-Einstein condensate of lithium dimers.
- Received 24 April 2016
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.93.053424
©2016 American Physical Society