Open Access
Cooling and trapping of neutral atoms
TLDR
In this paper, a review of the techniques for laser cooling and trapping of neutral atoms are described. But it was not until the 1980's that optical momentum transfer was used to cool and trap neutral atoms.Abstract:
Abstract As early as 1917, Einstein had predicted that momentum is transferred in the absorption and emission of light, but it was not until the 1980's that such optical momentum transfer was used to cool and trap neutral atoms. By properly tuning laser light close to atomic transitions, atomic samples can be cooled to extremely low temperatures, the brightness of atomic beams can be enhanced to unprecedented values, and atoms can be manipulated with extraordinary precision. In this review several of the techniques for laser cooling and trapping of neutral atoms are described.read more
Citations
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References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Trapping of neutral sodium atoms with radiation pressure
TL;DR: The confinement and cooling of an optically dense cloud of neutral sodium atoms by radiation pressure was reported, provided by three retroreflected laser beams propagating along orthogonal axes, with a weak magnetic field used to distinguish between the beams.
Journal ArticleDOI
The effect of collisions upon the Doppler width of spectral lines
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Journal ArticleDOI
Atomic interferometry using stimulated Raman transitions
Mark A. Kasevich,Steven Chu +1 more
TL;DR: The mechanical effects of stimulated Raman transitions on atoms have been used to demonstrate a matter-wave interferometer with laser-cooled sodium atoms that has observed interference for wave packets that have been separated by as much as 2.4 mm.
Journal ArticleDOI
Laser cooling below the Doppler limit by polarization gradients: simple theoretical models
TL;DR: In this article, two cooling mechanisms based on laser polarization gradients are presented, which lead to temperatures well below the Doppler limit, and they work at low laser power when the optical-pumping time between different ground-state sublevels becomes long.
Journal ArticleDOI
Cooling of gases by laser radiation
TL;DR: In this article, it was shown that a low-density gas can be cooled by illuminating it with intense, quasi-monochromatic light confined to the lower-frequency half of a resonance line's Doppler width.
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