[Historical report created from GSU BEC Homepage:]

"We have recently set up an apparatus for ⁸⁷Rb with which BEC was first observed on December 10, 2001. Our apparatus features a Zeeman slower that delivers up to 10¹¹ slow Rb atoms per second into the main vacuum chamber, where the atoms are collected in a bright MOT and then transferred into a cloverleaf Ioffe-Pritchard magnetic trap after compressed-MOT and gray-molasses phases. Laser cooling and trapping is done with a stable all-diode laser setup, including a high-power tapered amplifier and several injection-locked high-power laser diodes. With this apparatus 10¹⁰ Rb atoms can be collected in the MOT within 2 seconds and condensates containing up to 4 x 10⁶ atoms (!) in the |F = 1, M_F = -1> state can be created every 25 seconds. Condensates in the F = 2 state with comparable atom number have also been produced.

Personnel:

• Micah Boyd (graduate student)
• Gretchen Campbell (graduate student)
• Pavel Gorelik (undergraduate student)
• Dominik Schneble (postdoc)
• Erik Streed (graduate student)
• Yoshio Torii (postdoc)
• Dave Pritchard (PI)
• Wolfgang Ketterle (PI)."