High-brightness ultra-cold metastable neon-beam

Abstract

This paper presents detailed characteristics of an ultra-cold bright metastable neon atomic beam which we have been using for atom-interferometric applications. The basis of the device is an atomic beam released from a magneto-optical trap (MOT) which is operated with a high intensity trapping laser, high magnetic quadrupole field, and large laser detuining. Mainly due to the complex structure of three dimensional magnetic field and laser beams, a bright small spot of atoms is formed near the center of the quadrupole magnetic field under an appropriate operating condition. We obtained the minimum trap diameter of 50 micron meter, the atomic density nearly 10^{13}cm^{-3}, and the atomic temperature slightly less than the Doppler limited temperature of 200 micro-K. By releasing trapped atoms we obtained an bright cold atomic beam which is not far from the collision limited atomic density.