V001 / JSI / T24

Slika

Caesium atoms have been trapped and cooled for the first time in the Laboratory for Cold Atoms at the Solid State Physics Department of the Jožef Stefan Institute in collaboration with the Theoretical Physics Department and Low and Medium Energy Physics Department. A view through the vacuum chamber viewport shows a fluorescing tiny pink cloud containing 50 million caesium atoms levitating at a few hundred microkelvin. In the next step, the atoms will be transferred to the dipole trap produced by high-power laser light and finally cooled down by evaporation to reach temperatures below 50 nanokelvin, where the Bose-Einstein condensation takes place. More information about the laser cooling and trapping methods is available at ultracool.ijs.si.