We report on an experimental method to align a laser beam to a cloud of atoms trapped in a magneto-optical trap (MOT). We show how balanced lock-in detection leads to a very sensitive method to align the laser beam to the atoms in the plane perpendicular to the propagation direction. This provides a very reliable and fast way of aligning laser beams to atoms trapped in a MOT.

We report on the production of a continuous, slow, and cold beam of Rb atoms with an extremely high flux of 3.2 1012 atoms/s, a transverse temperature of 3 mK, and a longitudinal temperature of 90 mK. We describe the apparatus created to generate the atom beam. Hot atoms are emitted from a rubidium candlestick atomic beam source and transversely cooled and collimated by a 20 cm long atomic coll...

We generate a bright atomic beam containing laser-cooled rubidium and cesium, and we use this beam to load a mixed-species ultrahigh-vacuum (UHV) magneto-optical trap. We have characterized our two-species atomic beam over a range of operating conditions, and we obtain similar atom fluxes for each species. Within the UHV trap, interspecies inelastic collisions are observed in the form of enhanc...

We present a simple and inexpensive design for a multichannel effusive oven nozzle which provides improved atomic beam collimation and thus extended oven lifetimes. Using this design, we demonstrate an atomic lithium source suitable for trapped-atom experiments. At a nozzle temperature of 525 °C, the collimated atomic beam flux directly after the nozzle is 1.2 × 10(14) atoms/s with a peak beam ...