Sub-Doppler laser cooling of potassium atoms

Abstract

We investigate sub-Doppler laser cooling of bosonic potassium isotopes, whose small hyperfine splitting has so far prevented cooling below the Doppler temperature. We find instead that the combination of a dark optical molasses scheme that naturally arises in this kind of systems and an adiabatic ramping of the laser parameters allows to reach sub-Doppler temperatures for small laser detunings. We demonstrate temperatures as low as 25(3)microK and 47(5)microK in high-density samples of the two isotopes 39K and 41K, respectively. Our findings will find application to other atomic systems.