Atomic Ytterbium Beam Experiments at an Undergraudate Physics Laboratory

We report on progress towards producing cold Ytterbium atoms in an undergraduate laboratory. We constructed a low-cost Zeeman slower designed to slow Yb atoms from 325 m/s to $\sim$ 1 cm/s on the $^{1}S_{0}$ to $^{1}P_{1}$ atomic transition, accessible by a direct-diode laser at 398.8 nm. We propose using the spectrally-resolved spontaneous emission from a long-lived decay channel ($\tau\sim$ 1$\mu$s) to measure the Yb beam velocity.