Detail
We needed a stable recipe for dipolar 168Er condensates, so this APS DAMOP contribution documented a narrow-line MOT load into a crossed optical dipole trap plus staged evaporation tuned to preserve lifetime versus collision rate. The resulting sequence reliably reached BECs suitable for dipolar-simulation experiments.
The sequence emphasizes practical knobs: MOT detuning and intensity ramps that avoid density-limited loss, beam geometry that keeps magnetic field gradients manageable, and evaporation endpoints that preserve stability for dipolar-simulation experiments.
As part of the team I focused on data taking and sanity checks: tracking temperature and density through the ramp, and stress-testing the sequence for sensitivity to laser noise and magnetic gradients before handing it off for simulation work.