From Phys. Rev. Lett. submission:

"We report the observation of a Bose-Einstein condensation of ytterbium atoms by evaporative cooling in a novel crossed optical trap. Unlike the previously observed condensates, a ytterbium condensate is a two-electron system in a singlet state and has distinct features such as the extremely narrow intercombination transitions which are ideal for future optical frequency standard and the insensitivity to external magnetic field which is important for precision coherent atom optics, and the existence of the novel metastable triplet states generated by optical excitation from the singlet state."

[Received 30 April 2003; published 25 July 2003]
Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 040404 (2003)