[Historical report created from GSU BEC Homepage:]

"At LENS, in Firenze, on September 14th we have achieved Bose-Einstein condensation of ⁴¹K by means of sympathetic cooling with ⁸⁷Rb.

Both species are precooled in a double MOT system and simultaneously loaded in a QUIC magnetic trap in their |F = 2, M_F = 2> state. Selective evaporative cooling of Rb is performed using a microwave knife on the 6.8 GHz hyperfine transition, and sympathetic cooling of K is very efficient, due to a large interspecies collisional cross-section. We observe the formation of K condensates containing about 10⁴ atoms at T ~ 160 nK.

Figure above: Sympathetic cooling of ⁴¹K atoms with ⁸⁷Rb from a few tens of mK(right) to Bose-Einstein condensation for K (left).

Our team is composed of:

• Gabriele Ferrari
• Giovanni Modugno
• Giacomo Roati
• Massimo Inguscio

Fundamental contributions were made by:

• Robert J. Brecha (University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio)
• Wlodek Jastrebski (Polish Academy of Science, Warsaw, Poland)
• Nicola Poli
• Francesco Riboli

For more details visit our web page."