A new apparatus for a degenerate alkali-lanthanide mixture

We present a new platform for the creation of a degenerate mixture of erbium and lithium atoms. A dual-species oven generates overlapped, co-propagating atomic beams. The species are first loaded into magneto-optical traps from slowed atomic beams and the lithium atoms are sub-Doppler cooled. The species are then sequentially loaded into an optical dipole trap for optical transport to a nano-textured glass cell. This alkali-lanthanide mixture offers exciting new possibilities, including long-range interactions via phonon exchange, mixed dimensional systems, collective spin physics, and few-body phenomena.