Quantum technologies

Raman sideband cooling is a method to prepare atoms in the vibrational ground state of a periodic potential and cool them below recoil limit. It can be implemented as a mid-stage cooling to improve the eciency and speed of evaporative cooling. The aim of this text is introducing its principle, design of such an apparatus for Rubidium atoms using diode lasers and explain technical details of set up process. The design for a laser system based on three diode lasers for a MOT to trap and pre-cool the atoms and the 3D optical lattice to perform the degenerate Raman sideband cooling is presented. Three external cavity diode lasers working at 780nm with 40 mW and 60 mW of power are built and locked to 87Rb D2-line using polarization spectroscopy. In addition, A UHV system with the final pressure of 7*10^-10 is built. Reaching a UHV regime has lots of diffculties and needs certain techniques and care. Here the techniques I have sued to maintain such low pressure, namely: cleaning recipe, pump down, bake-out and leak tests has been discussed in details.