Simple and robust method for rapid cooling of 87Rb to quantum degeneracy*

Abstract

We demonstrate a simple and fast way to produce 87Rb Bose–Einstein condensates. A digital optical phase lock loop (OPLL) board is introduced to lock and adjust the frequency of the trap laser, which simplifies the optical design and improves the experimental efficiency. We collect atoms in a magneto-optical trap, then compress the cloud and cut off hot atoms by rf knife in a magnetic quadrupole trap. The atom clouds are then transferred into a spatially mode-matched optical dipole trap by lowering the quadrupole field gradient. Our system reliably produces a condensate with 2×106 atoms every 7.5 s. The compact optical design and rapid preparation speed of our system will open the gate for mobile quantum sensing.