[Historical report created from GSU BEC Homepage:]

"In the early evening, September 23, we have realized a Rb-BEC in a new and compact setup at Hamburg University. Slow atoms from an upper 2D-MOT beam, similar to the one in Amsterdam, are captured within 10 sec in a lower 3D-MOT and subsequently transferred into an especially designed cloverleaf- and D-magnetic trap (255 Hz and 11 Hz measured trap frequencies). After 15 sec rf-evaporation we observe the onset of BEC in the usual time-of-flight images. In the first measurements we have measured 1 to 2 x 10⁶ atoms in the condensate fraction.

On the figure above:
Left: condensate surrounded by thermal cloud; right: a nearly pure Bose-Einstein condensate.

These results were achieved by the team of

• Holger Schmaljohann (Ph.D. student)
• Michael Erhard (Ph.D. student)
• Jochen Kronjaeger (Ph.D. student)
• Markus Kottke (Ph.D. student)
• Sebastian van Staa (diploma student)
• Kai Bongs (post-doc)
• Klaus Sengstock (professor)

We are looking forward to a lot of fun with BEC's in Hamburg. For further information, see the group web page."