Brightening of a supersonic beam of neutral atoms

Erik Anciaux, Georgios Stratis, Mark Raizen

Abstract: Well-collimated, high-intensity beams of neutral atoms have many applications ranging from atom microscopy to atom interferometry to ultracold atomic physics. We experimentally demonstrate a method for brightening a supersonic atomic beam and observe an increase in the phase space density by a factor of at least 20. Our scheme relies upon a permanent magnetic hexapole lens to focus a divergent beam of neutral atoms emitted from a supersonic nozzle and transverse laser cooling as the beam converges downstream from the lens so as to create a dense, narrow, Doppler-collimated atomic beam. In principle, this method can be repeated multiple times in series for further beam brightening.