Strongly Interacting Mixtures of Ultracold Atoms

The study of mixtures of two or more different atomic species is a new frontier in the field of ultracold quantum gases. Part of the motivation for this research lies in the interest in novel forms of superfluidity, which could for example mimic bulk nuclear matter and exotic superconductors. In this poster, we will present our experimental progress on cooling a Fermi-Fermi mixture of the fermionic Alkalis $^6$Li and $^{40}$K. The difficulty of the low natural abundance of $^{40}$K (%0.01) is typically overcome with the use of enriched, but expensive, $^{40}$K. In our approach we use two independent Zeeman slowers optimized for high atomic fluxes of non-enriched K and Li. This allows us to load 5 x $10^7$ fermionic K into a magneto-optical trap, and it also gives us access to the bosonic isotopes of $^{39}$K and $^{41}$K as possible sympathetic coolants for both $^6$Li and $^{40}$K. After producing a Bose-Einstein condensate of $^{41}$K by direct evaporation and sympathetically cooling the fermion $^{40}$K, our next goal is the production of a degenerate Fermi-Fermi mixture of $^6$Li and $^{40}$K.