Enhanced Loading of 40K from Natural Abundance Potassium Source with a High Performance 2D+ MOT.

40K is one of the most important atomic species for ultra-cold atomic physics. Due to the extremely low concentration (0.012%) of 40K in natural abundance of potassium, most experiments use 4–10% enriched potassium source, which have greatly suffered from the extremely low annual production and significant price hikes in recent years. Using naturally abundant potassium source, we capture 5.4×106 cold 40K atoms with the help of a high performance of two-dimensional magneto-optical trap (2D+ MOT), which is almost three orders of magnitude greater than previous results without the 2D+ MOT. The number of the 40K atoms is sufficient for most ultra-cold 40K experiments, and our approach provides an ideal alternative for the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]