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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

Cooling of atoms reflected from an evanescent light wave

D. V. Laryushin, Yu. B. Ovchinnikov, V. I. Balykin, Vladilen S Letokhov

Published May 6, 1996• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The first experimental observation of the sisyphus cooling in an evanescent light wave was carried out. We have observed a reduction of the transverse energy of Na atoms in a beam upon its reflection from the evanescent light wave, associated with the optical pumping between sublevels of the hyperfine structure of the atomic ground state. The initial transverse momentum of 42 $HBARk has been reduced to 28$HBARk in a single reflection event.

DOI
10.1117/12.239844

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The first experimental observation of the sisyphus cooling in an evanescent light wave was carried out. We have observed a reduction of the transverse energy of Na atoms in a beam upon its reflection from the evanescent light wave, associated with the optical pumping between sublevels of the hyperfine structure of the atomic ground state. The initial transverse momentum of 42 HBARkhasbeenreducedto28HBARk has been reduced to 28HBARkhasbeenreducedto28HBARk in a single reflection event.
Studied in this work is the cooling of a beam of sodium atoms upon its reflection from an evanescent light wave. The cooling mechanism is associated with the spontaneous transitions of the atoms between the hyperflne-structure sublevels of the ground state. Subject to studies is the relationship between the reflection angle of the atoms and the frequency detuning and intensity of the light wave. It is demonstrated experimentally that the transverse atomic momentum component can be reduced by more than one half (A p I/p I = 0.5) . a single reflection event, the number of cooled atoms in the reflected beam exceeding 50%. It should be noted that the loss of atoms in reflection can be made as small as desired, and so the reflection cooling cycle can be repeated many times over.
We present an experiment where a cloud of cold caesium atoms is dropped onto an atomic mirror formed by a laser evanescent wave, and is cooled during the reflection. This cooling is due to a single Sisyphus process, transferring atoms from one ground-state hyperfine level to another, less coupled to the evanescent wave. We compare our results with a simple one-dimensional theoretical model. We also give the first experimental evidence for a large increase in the confinement lifetime of the atoms in this ‘gravitational cavity’ because of the cooling process.
We investigate both theoretically and experimentally an elementary Sisyphus process occurring during the reflection of an atom onto a laser evanescent wave propagating at the surface of a dielectric prism. Cesium atoms bouncing at normal incidence may undergo a spontaneous Raman transition between their two hyperfine levels; this leads to an efficient cooling since those levels are light shifted by a different amount by the laser-atom interaction thanks to the large hyperfine splitting. We compare the measured final energy distributions after the bounce with Monte Carlo simulations. A quantitative agreement is obtained when the van der Waals interaction between the cesium atoms and the dielectric prism is taken into account. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.
We show that internal state transitions may induce energy transfer among different directions of motion and lead efficiently to large scattering angles in atomic reflection from evanescent-wave mirrors. The proposed scattering mechanism is reminiscent of the so-called Sisyphus effect of laser cooling. Perturbative calculations are presented and discussed for the diffraction of atomic beams at grazing incidence on evanescent fields with polarization gradients and for the reflection of atoms by a rough mirror.
In the reflection of atoms by evanescent wave the amplitude of the light field can be changed not necessarily adiabatically slow in comparison with relaxation of internal atomic motion. An approach to describe the reflection of atoms by evanescent wave is the dressed state picture. An atomic mirror can be formed also by a focused elliptical laser beam, in which atoms intersect near the waist of the laser beam. A simple evanescent wave allows one to create a high homogeneous field along the surface of an atomic mirror, without a limitation on the intensity of the field in an evanescent wave. The size of an atomic mirror is usually restricted by the laser intensity required by the reflection. There are several processes at the reflection of atom by light which could lead to non ideal properties of the mirror. One of the remarkable properties of an atomic mirror is its ability to reflect atoms in a certain quantum state.