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Optics Letters

Optical detection of cold atoms without spontaneous emission

V. Savalli, G. Horváth, P. D. Featonby, Laurent Cognet, Nathalie Westbrook, Christoph Ira Westbrook, Alain Aspect

Published Nov 15, 1999• 20 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We have demonstrated nondestructive detection of cold atoms with a probe laser by a frequency-modulation spectroscopy technique. We were able to tune the probe laser and its sidebands far from atomic resonance to reduce the spontaneous emission to less than 0.2 photon per atom during detection.
DOI
10.1364/ol.24.001552

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