In the late afternoon on November 18^th 2016 we observed first cesium BEC in our laboratory. We cool the atoms flying from the oven with a Zeeman slower, trap them in the MOT, then use degenerate Raman sideband cooling to transfer them into F = 3, m_F=3 state and cool them enough for a successful transfer into the dipole trap. We use the dimple trick to increase their density and then evaporate in the dimple trap.

The picture shows the atom cloud after 65 ms of expansion at different points along the evaporation. Transition happens at the critical temperature 20 nK. The rightmost picture shows an almost pure BEC with around 15000 cesium atoms.

Team: Tadej Mežnaršič, Jaka Pišljar, Jure Brence, Rok Venturini, Žiga Gosar, Rok Žitko, Erik Zupanič, Peter Jeglič

Former team members: Maj Škerjanc, Nejc Janša, Pavel Kos, Nejc Rosenstein, Gregor Bensa