In the view of the aforementioned strategic decision and towards the goal of establishing strontium as a powerful and versatile platform for experimentally exploring artificial magnetic fields in optical potentials we have taken action in four directions.
• We designed and built a new, versatile, and extendable apparatus where experiments on strontium quantum gases and strontium mixtures with other atoms can be performed. By the moment of writing this report we can create quantum degenerate gases of strontium.
• We devised schemes for optical microscopy at the single-atom level (mention the specs and the cooling protocol).
• We created the laser toolbox to explore topological physics (mention the lasers)
• We have theoretically explored precise ways of performing experiments with artificial gauge fields in the upcoming months. (mention the scheme)
In the course of that action I have supervised 5 Bachelor’s students for short projects (auto-locking of kHz lasers, tunable lenses for optical transport, 689 nm laser system for narrowline laser cooling), 2 Master students (compensation coils for a month project, creation of red MOT and development of clock lasers), 2 PhD students.
For the dissemination of our results during this action we have:
• Attended 1 international workshop on artificial gauge fields (Dresden, Germany, 2015)
• Attended with posters in 5 Dutch conferences (Lunteren (2015,2016, and 2017) for AMO physics, Veldhoven (2016, 2017) Physics)
• Institute of Physics seminar (presented by PhD student Oleksiy Onischenko)
• 2 presentations for the UvA Quantum Gases Group and the university Technology Center
• Lab tours and demonstrations for kids, college students and the general public.
