Magnetic trapping of atomic chromium

Abstract

Ground-state ${}^{52}\mathrm{Cr}$ atoms have been magnetically trapped using buffer-gas loading. The atoms are produced by laser ablation of solid ${}^{52}\mathrm{Cr},$ thermalized by collisions with a cryogenically cooled helium buffer gas, and trapped by an anti-Helmholtz quadrupole magnetic field. The atoms are detected by absorption spectroscopy on the ${a}^{7}{S}_{3}\ensuremath{\leftrightarrow}{z}^{7}{P}_{3}$ transition at 427.6 nm. Using this technique, approximately ${10}^{11}$ atoms are loaded into the trap in a single ablation pulse. Loading has been demonstrated at temperatures from 0.3 to 1.4 K.