Compact Continuous Cold Atomic Beam from a Single Cell with 3D Cooling and Ultra-low Light Shift

Abstract

We report a compact single-cell source of a continuous cold-atom beam with three-dimensional (3D) cooling. By integrating an off-axis moving optical molasses (OM) with a two-dimensional magneto-optical trap (MOT), we achieve simultaneous 3D cooling within a 50 mm interaction region. The source delivers a continuous flux up to 4.9(5)x10^9 atoms/s, with a transverse temperature of 94(5) microK, a longitudinal temperature as low as 231(65) microK, and a tunable mean velocity between 5 and 20 m/s. Custom in-vacuum mirrors integrate the reflective geometry for the off-axis OM beams with a 0.8 mm output aperture, ensuring stable alignment while suppressing stray light and fluorescence leakage. Ultra-low light shift and decoherence are verified via continuous Raman-Ramsey interferometry, yielding a light shift of -0.51(4)Hz and a typical fringe contrast of 90.85(30)% at a Raman separation of 100 mm (interrogation time of 8.70 ms). This compact continuous cold-atom beam source constitutes a practical building block for atomic-beam clocks and interferometers, enabling reduced aliasing noise together with improved sensitivity and accuracy for field applications.