Atomic source development for the Project 8 neutrino mass experiment

The Project 8 experiment aims to determine the mass of the electron anti-neutrino, pushing below the inverted mass hierarchy scale with a sensitivity of 40 meV. In order to achieve this, Project 8 uses Cyclotron Radiation Emission Spectroscopy (CRES) to measure the energy of tritium beta-decay electrons close to the kinematic endpoint, where the signature of the neutrino mass is imprinted. One important factor in achieving a sensitivity of 40 meV is avoiding the energy broadening due to the molecular final states of T2 molecules, which improves statistical sensitivity on the neutrino mass significantly. For this purpose, Project 8 will use atomic instead of molecular tritium. In this contribution, I will present some of the advances made in developing a source of atomic tritium as it will be necessary for the Project 8 experiment, as well as lay out future steps towards reaching that goal.