A High Intensity Cold Atomic Beam

Continuous, high intensity, cold atomic beams are important for precision measurement and atom optics applications. Laser cooling and buffer gas-based methods are already well developed, but new methods that could potentially provide brighter beams are still of interest. We present our work on a new approach based on continuous post-nozzle injection of lithium atoms into a supersonic helium jet. We reduce the jet velocity to 210 m/s by cryogenically cooling the helium nozzle, and extract the lithium atoms from the jet with magnetic focusing. The focused lithium beam has a width of approximately 5 mm, a peak intensity of  8×10¹² cm^-2 s^-1 , and a temperature of less than 20 mK in the moving frame. Ongoing efforts to increase the beam brightness will also be discussed.