Phase-space properties of magneto-optical traps utilising micro-fabricated gratings

Abstract: We have used diffraction gratings to simplify the fabrication, and dramatically increase the atomic collection efficiency, of magneto-optical traps using micro-fabricated optics. The atom number enhancement was mainly due to the increased beam capture volume, afforded by the large area (4cm^2) shallow etch (200nm) binary grating chips. Here we provide a detailed theoretical and experimental investigation of the on-chip magneto-optical trap temperature and density in four different chip geometries using 87Rb, whilst studying effects due to MOT radiation pressure imbalance. With optimal initial MOTs on two of the chips we obtain both large atom number (2x10^7) and sub-Doppler temperatures (50uK) after optical molasses.