Collimating a Low-Velocity Intense Source of ⁴¹K with Gray-Molasses Laser Cooling

Producing a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of potassium-41 is particularly difficult because the narrow energy levels of the excited state reduce the effectiveness of traditional cooling techniques, limiting the number of atoms that can form the BEC. We anticipate that the number of atoms transported from our 2D magneto-optical trap (MOT) to our 3D MOT can be increased by implementing a gray-molasses laser system as an intermediary cooling phase. We have implemented the system in 1D and demonstrate that the gray-molasses criterion of near zero magnetic field is achievable despite the proximity to the 2D MOT's magnetic field