Low divergence cold-wall oven for loading ion traps

Abstract

We present a compact cold-wall oven that is simple to build and align for loading miniature ion traps with calcium ions. The cold-wall oven, which is a metal-loaded capillary heated only through a portion of its length by the passage of a current, is described and characterized. An atomic beam with a low divergence of 14 mrad is produced. We perform Doppler-sensitive, resonant fluorescence measurements on the atomic beam to characterize the oven’s performance. The emission of atoms from the oven is seen within ∼70 s after turning on the oven at an electric power consumption of <10 W. The flow rate is measured to be 1.5 ± 0.2 × 109 atoms s−1 at a temperature of 702 ± 7 K. The entire oven assembly is mounted on a CF16 feedthrough. This design can be extended to other species for producing a collimated atomic beam.