A continuous source of Bose-Einstein condensed atoms

A P Chikkatur; Y Shin; A E Leanhardt; D Kielpinski; E Tsikata; T L Gustavson; D E Pritchard; W Ketterle

doi:10.1126/science.296.5576.2193

A continuous source of Bose-Einstein condensed atoms

Science. 2002 Jun 21;296(5576):2193-5. doi: 10.1126/science.296.5576.2193.

Authors

A P Chikkatur¹, Y Shin, A E Leanhardt, D Kielpinski, E Tsikata, T L Gustavson, D E Pritchard, W Ketterle

Affiliation

¹ Department of Physics, MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms, and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. ananth@mit.edu

PMID: 12077408
DOI: 10.1126/science.296.5576.2193

Abstract

A continuous source of Bose-Einstein condensed sodium atoms was created by periodically replenishing a condensate held in an optical dipole trap with new condensates delivered using optical tweezers. The source contained more than 1 x 10(6) atoms at all times, raising the possibility of realizing a continuous atom laser.