Magneto-optical trap

We have a cold atom lab in which students get trained with widely applicable skills working with lasers, optics and optical devices, various electronic equipment, interfacing equipment with the computer, and of course the two steps forward one step back reality of experimental physics. Thus, our students leave here resilient and well-equipped for their future careers!

We have built an apparatus for cooling atoms in a magneto-optical trap and transferring them to novel light patterns for their study. For every new undergraduate student cohort, training, retuning the lasers, and realigning the optics after long breaks takes much of their time, but each then adds an improvement to the apparatus to make it more robust for their future peers.

Here is a poster (pdf is below) from SQuInT 2020 with a glimpse at our lab and some of the recent changes. Since this poster, and the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic, we have spent much of our time automating many of the steps required for tuning our lasers, leaving future students with the opportunity to spend less time tuning, and more time doing science!