Abstract
Ultracold quantum gases play a pivotal role in many-body physics, quantum sensing and quantum simulation. Over time, methods such as evaporative cooling in bulk ensembles and precision laser-cooling have been employed to effectively achieve quantum degeneracy in atomic gases. A simpler and more rapid way to form quantum gases would, thus, hold considerable promise in advancing the field. Here, we report the creation of a quantum gas by cooling individual rubidium atoms pinned in a three-dimensional optical lattice using electromagnetically induced transparency and adiabatic expansion. After just 10 ms of cooling, we verified the phase transition from a thermal to a quantum gas by adiabatically transferring the atoms to optical dipole traps. We observed the collapse of atoms in three-dimensional traps, a distinctive hallmark of a quantum gas with negative scattering length. Additionally, in a one-dimensional optical trap, we observed the emergence of a stable and strongly correlated quantum gas. Our results introduce a versatile and fast approach to achieving quantum degenerate gases with minimal time and resource requirements.
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Data availability
Source data are provided with this paper. All other data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.
Code availability
The computer code used to support the conclusions of the current study is available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge stimulating discussions with M.-S. Chang and S.-W. Chiow. This work was supported by the Singapore National Research Foundation (Grant Nos. QEP-P4 and NRF2021-QEP2-03-P01 to S.L.), the Singapore Ministry of Education (Grant No. MOE-T2EP50121-0021 to S.L.), the Yushan Fellow Programme of the Ministry of Education of Taiwan (S.L.) and the 2030 Cross-Generation Young Scholars Programme of the National Science and Technology Council of Taiwan (Grant No. 112-2628-M-002-013- to S.L.).
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M.X., W.S.L. and S.-Y.L. conceived and designed the experiment and analysed the data. M.X. and W.S.L. built the experimental set-up and performed the measurements. S.-Y.L. wrote the manuscript with input and revisions from all authors. S.-Y.L. supervised the project and advised on the overall results in the manuscript. M.X., W.S.L., Z.C., Y.W. and S.-Y.L. discussed the results.
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Extended data
Extended Data Fig. 1 Configuration of the optical alignments for EIT cooling, optical lattices, and optical dipole trap.
All the beams follow the x-y plane and y-z planes. The EIT cooling beams follow the MOT beams alignment indicated by the red arrows with circular polarizations. The green arrows that follow the x, y, and z coordinates represent the optical lattices. The blue arrows are the optical dipole trap lasers.
Extended Data Fig. 2 Time-of-flight absorption images after the collapse of the quantum gas.
The x trap is switched on during the last EIT cooling and turned off after 0.9 ms of the adiabatic cooling for the TOF imaging. Gravity acts in the downward z direction.
Extended Data Fig. 3 Fluorescence images at different sequence stages with a large initial filling factor.
The measured filling factors for the images from left to right are 0.73(1), 2.83(2), and 2.23(1), respectively. The colour scale is in arbitrary unit.
Extended Data Fig. 4 Last EIT cooling performance for Extended Data Fig. 3.
Atom number and filling factor versus the last EIT cooling time when the initial filling factor is more than 2 before the last EIT cooling. The atom number is measured by fluorescence imaging, and the cloud size is measured by absorption imaging. The 7% atom number decay in 300 μs is mainly the light scattering loss of atoms that are not trapped by the optical lattice. The error bars denote the standard error of the mean of four measurements and include only statistical errors.
Extended Data Fig. 5 Vibrational spectroscopy with a filling factor of 2.5.
The spectroscopy is performed after the last EIT cooling along the x axis. The error bars denote the standard error of the mean of four measurements.
Extended Data Fig. 6 Comparison of the ideal and 1D quantum gas using Gaussian fit.
a, The density profile is projected along the y axis after adiabatically turning off the y lattice with ta = 0.2 ms (ideal gas) and ta = 1 ms (1D quantum gas). The data are taken after holding the atoms in the tubes for 10 μs and releasing them with 3 ms TOF. The data curves are fitted with a Gaussian function and the shaded areas represents the difference between the data and the fitted Gaussian functions. b, A 10 ms TOF image of the 1D gas after released from the lattice using the coldest atoms depicted in Fig. 4a for comparison. The errror bars denote the standard error of the mean of 30 measurements.
Extended Data Fig. 7 Absorption imaging.
a, Absorption image of the atomic cloud in the 3D lattice after the last EIT cooling with most atoms in the F = 3 state for ODp measurement. The absorption beam is red-detuned by 23.4 MHz from the atomic resonance. b, Absorption image of the atomic cloud in the 3D lattice after the last EIT cooling with most atoms in the F = 2 state for cloud size measurement. The absorption beam is tuned to atomic resonance. The colour bar represents measured optical depth.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Video 1
The collapse dynamics in the y trap at ta = 1 ms. In situ absorption imaging after loading and holding atoms in the y trap. Same collapse process as in Fig. 3a.
Supplementary Video 2
The collapse in the x trap at different ta. Absorption images of the collapse after 10 μs in the x trap and 2 ms TOF. Same collapse process as in Fig. 3d.
Supplementary Video 3
The collapse dynamics in the x trap at ta = 0.9 ms. Same collapse process as in Extended Data Fig. 2.
Source data
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Xin, M., Leong, W.S., Chen, Z. et al. Fast quantum gas formation via electromagnetically induced transparency cooling. Nat. Phys. 21, 63–69 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-024-02677-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-024-02677-9
