Focusing a fountain of neutral cesium atoms with an electrostatic lens triplet

Journal Article · Sat Oct 15 04:00:00 EDT 2005 · Physical Review. A

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.72.043406· OSTI ID:20718767

Kalnins, Juris G; Amini, Jason M; Gould, Harvey ^[1]

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1. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720 (United States)

An electrostatic lens with three focusing elements in an alternating-gradient configuration is used to focus a fountain of cesium atoms in their ground (strong-field-seeking) state. The lens electrodes are shaped to produce only sextupole plus dipole equipotentials which avoids adding the unnecessary nonlinear forces present in cylindrical lenses. Defocusing between lenses is greatly reduced by having all of the main electric fields point in the same direction and be of nearly equal magnitude. The addition of the third lens gave us better control of the focusing strength in the two transverse planes and allowed focusing of the beam to half the image size in both planes. The beam envelope was calculated for lens voltages selected to produced specific focusing properties. The calculations, starting from first principles, were compared with measured beam sizes and found to be in good agreement. Application to fountain experiments, atomic clocks, and focusing polar molecules in strong-field-seeking states is discussed.

• OSTI ID: 20718767
• Journal Information: Physical Review. A, Journal Name: Physical Review. A Journal Issue: 4 Vol. 72; ISSN 1050-2947; ISSN PLRAAN
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS
74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
ATOMIC CLOCKS
ATOMS
CESIUM
CYLINDRICAL CONFIGURATION
DIPOLES
ELECTRIC FIELDS
ELECTRIC POTENTIAL
ELECTRODES
ELECTROSTATIC LENSES
FOCUSING
GROUND STATES
MOLECULES
NONLINEAR PROBLEMS
TRIPLETS