Trapping ⁸⁵Rb in a 3D-Printed, AlSi10Mg UHV Chamber

Quantum sensors involving laser-cooled atoms have broken records in measurements of gravity, time, and electromagnetic fields due to the favorable signal-to-noise ratios and sampling times a large, cold cloud offers. While trapping and preparing alkali atoms for quantum sensing is a relatively straightforward task in a laboratory environment, significant size, weight, and power (SWaP) requirements of conventional steel UHV chambers and ion pumps have limited the practicality of cold-atom sensors in fieldable environments. In this poster, we discuss the assembly and utility of customizable, 3D-printed UHV chambers out of lightweight AlSi10Mg with adhesively bonded CaF₂ viewports for laser access. This assembly sustains background pressures in the 0.5-1 nTorr range with the aid of 2-L/s ion and passive getter pumps. With a combination of anti-Helmholtz coils set in printed recesses of the AlSi10Mg chamber and a 780-nm laser system, we successfully load a ⁸⁵Rb magneto-optical trap (MOT) with our system. Thus, we demonstrate the feasibility of such low-SWaP laser cooling apparatuses for fieldable quantum sensors.