Development of Potassium Dipole Trap with Octupolar Trapping Symmetry

Much novel work has been done towards generating a Bose-Einstein condensate of potassium, which has proven more difficult than other typical atoms used for BECs (e.g. 87Rb). Sub-Doppler cooling techniques have been developed for potassium, but require a release of the atoms in order to exert sub-Doppler forces onto them. With these limitations in mind, our group has been pioneering an octupolar symmetry trap for the MOT; this field symmetry allows for both trapping (due to the magnetic field gradient at the edges of the trap) as well as sub-Doppler cooling of the trap center (where the magnetic field gradient approaches zero).

We have previously demonstrated successful trapping and sub-Doppler behavior of such a MOT. Recent progess has been towards building the dipole trap for Potassium-41, having recently installed and commissioned the 1550-nm laser used in the crossed dipole trap. We will describe the progress made towards the trapping and sympathetic cooling of atoms necessary to reach BEC.