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Abstract

This thesis reports on the first steps towards the preparation of an ultracold threecomponent Fermi gas of ⁶Li in an optical lattice. A vacuum chamber and a magneto-optical trap (MOT) for ⁶Li were set up and characterized. The MOT will serve as a first trapping and cooling stage, from which atoms can be loaded into an optical dipole trap for further cooling. The crucial parameters of the apparatus are a high MOT loading rate for fast experiment cycles, and a low background pressure, which will provide an undisturbed environment and thus a long lifetime for atoms in the lattice. The loading rate of the MOT was measured to be L ~ 3 x 10⁸ atoms/s at an oven temperature of T_oven = 350 C, which exceeds current state of the art experiments and will allow for loading times of less than one second in the planned experiments. The background collision limited lifetime of atoms in the MOT is t ~ 23 min. Collisions with the background gas are therefore not expected to be a limiting factor for the lifetime of atoms in the optical lattice.