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

New type of sub-Doppler laser cooling for three-level atoms

Dmitry V. Kosachiov, Yuri V. Rozhdestvenskii

Published May 6, 1996• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We examine the laser cooling of three-level (Lambda) -atoms in the field of two standing waves when frequency detunings are considerably greater than natural width of the excited state as well as the Rabi frequencies in the system. It is shown that at the difference of frequency detunings is small when compared to the Rabi frequencies sub-Doppler cooling of the (Lambda) -atom is possible. We present the dependence of the light pressure force on the atoms velocity and dependence of cooled atoms temperature on the parameters of the exciting waves.

DOI
10.1117/12.239871

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We examine the laser cooling of three-level (Lambda) -atoms in the field of two standing waves when frequency detunings are considerably greater than natural width of the excited state as well as the Rabi frequencies in the system. It is shown that at the difference of frequency detunings is small when compared to the Rabi frequencies sub-Doppler cooling of the (Lambda) -atom is possible. We present the dependence of the light pressure force on the atoms velocity and dependence of cooled atoms temperature on the parameters of the exciting waves.
We present a general theoretical description of laser cooling of three-level atoms in a Λ configuration in two standing waves. Detunings, intensity, and spatial phase difference of the two waves are arbitrary. We demonstrate that, for a zero spatial phase shift, sub-Doppler cooling requires equal detunings. The basic mechanism is then coherent population trapping. For different detunings sub-Doppler cooling occurs only when the spatial phases of the two standing waves are different. This effect can be traced back to a mechanism of the Sisyphus type. These schemes of sub-Doppler cooling require neither polarization gradients nor magnetic fields.
Radiation pressure and laser cooling of a moving three-level ladder-type atom in bichromatic travelling fields are considered. The dependence of the force on parameters such as detunings, Rabi frequencies and spontaneous decay rates is calculated numerically and shown graphically and analytical expressions for the force are obtained for some special parameter values. It is shown that the radiation pressure shows Doppler-shifted resonance peaks resulting respectively from one-photon and two-photon transitions. Using the present scheme, Doppler cooling of sodium exploiting the 3 2 S 1/2 –3 2 P 3/2 –3 2 D 5/2 cascade transitions is investigated. It is found that temperatures lower than the Doppler limit can be achieved.
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.
We present an investigation of an alternative mechanism for sub-Doppler cooling of atoms, based on a coherent population transfer in three-level \ensuremath{\Lambda} systems. The mechanism considered is that of a \ensuremath{\Lambda} atom interacting with two standing light waves with a mutual spatial phase shift cphi\ensuremath{\ne}0. The spatial dependence of the level populations of the \ensuremath{\Lambda} atom for different values of cphi is presented. For cphi\ensuremath{\ne}0, this clearly demonstrates coherent population transfer in an atom with transverse motion along the space-shifted nodes and antinodes of the two standing waves. We show that this allows translational temperatures well below the Doppler limit TD{\mathit{T}}_{\mathit{D}}TD​=${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Elzxh}}}_{\ensuremath{\gamma}}$/kB{\mathit{k}}_{\mathit{B}}kB​ to be achieved.
A laser cooling scheme for atoms with an effective three-level \ensuremath{\Lambda} configuration is presented. The cooling force is obtained by using two standing light waves, each interacting only with one of the two atomic transitions and both detuned red with respect to the transition. For a given laser power, the force exceeds the largest force on a two-level atom by a factor of 2 or more and the atomic velocity capture range is at the same time significantly increased. The spatially averaged force as well as the spatially averaged momentum diffusion coefficient, as a function of the atomic velocity, is calculated. The semiclassical steady-state momentum distributions are presented for some specific cases and an experimental realization of the cooling scheme is proposed for the case of metastable helium.
We report a 1D study of optical forces on atoms in a two-frequency laser field. The light couples two ground state hyperfine structure levels to a common excited state of 85Rb^{85}\mathrm{Rb}85Rb, thus forming a \ensuremath{\Lambda} system. We observe a new type of sub-Doppler coupling with blue-tuned light that uses neither polarization gradients nor magnetic fields, efficient heating with red tuning, and the spatial phase dependence of these. We observed deflection from a rectified dipole force and determined its velocity dependence and capture range. We report velocity selective resonances associated with Raman transitions. A simplified semiclassical calculation agrees qualitatively with our measurements.