Low divergence cold-wall oven for loading ion traps

We present a compact cold-wall oven that is simple to build and align for loading miniature ion traps with calcium ions. The cold-wall oven, which is a metal-loaded capillary heated only through a portion of its length by the passage of a current, is described and characterized. An atomic beam with a low divergence of 14 mrad is produced. We perform Doppler-sensitive, resonant fluorescence measurements on the atomic beam to characterize the oven’s performance. The emission of atoms from the oven is seen within ∼70 s after turning on the oven at an electric power consumption of