A dual species MOT of Yb and Cs

This thesis describes the design and construction of a new apparatus to laser cool and trap Yb and Cs atoms with the ultimate aim of creating ultracold molecules with both an electric and magnetic dipole moment, which are of great interest in a range of fields. The Yb and Cs atomic beams are first generated and overlapped in a dual species oven. A collimated atomic beam of the two species is formed by the use of an array of capillary tubes at the exit of the oven. At this stage the atoms have an average velocity of 311m/s or 264m/s for Yb and Cs respectively, therefore it is necessary to reduce their velocity before they can be trapped in a magneto-optical trap (MOT). This initial stage of slowing is carried out with a Zeeman slower. Due to their atomic properties, Yb and Cs atoms are unable to be slowed by the same magnetic field profile therefore they cannot be loaded simultaneously, however, the Zeeman slower can load the atoms into a MOT sequentially. Once their velocities have been reduced to approximately 48m/s (10m/s) the Cs (Yb) atoms can be captured in a MOT. The laser systems for cooling Yb and Cs are also presented. Laser cooling of Cs is achieved on the D2 transition at 852.3nm whereas Yb can either be cooled on the 1S0 to 1P1 or 1S0 to 3P1 transitions at 398.9nm or 555.8nm respectively. Due to the relative linewidths of these transitions (2π×28.0MHz and 2π × 182.2kHz), Zeeman slowing is performed for Yb on the 1S0 to 1P1 transition and magneto-optical trapping on the 1S0 to 3P1 transition. A Cs MOT with 1 × 10^8 atoms and an Yb MOT with the order of 10^8 atoms on the narrow 556nm transition are demonstrated. The mixture can be sequentially loaded into a dual species MOT, paving the way for many further experiments exploring this novel mixture.