Journal of the Physical Society of Japan
Dissipative Force and Laser Cooling of a Ladder-Type Three-Level Atom
Z. C. Wang, Lei Tan
Abstract
A theoretical study is made of the dissipative force and Doppler cooling of a ladder-type three-level atom coupled to a travelling coherent light beam. The dependence of the force on parameters such as detunings, Rabi frequencies, spontaneous decay and coherence transfer rates is calculated numerically and shown graphically. Analytical expressions for the force are obtained for special parameter values. It is shown that for suitable choices of parameter values, it is possible to cool three-level atoms to temperatures down below the Doppler limit.