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Physical Review A

Laser cooling during velocity-selective adiabatic population transfer

Eugeny Korsunsky

Published Sep 1, 1996• 8 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Velocity-selective adiabatic population transfer by time-delayed laser pulses is considered. In this process only a narrow part of an atomic momentum distribution follows the "dark" state adiabatically. The remaining atoms are excited and partially pumped into the dark state. We show that this effect can be used for cooling atoms below the photon recoil energy using pulsed laser radiation.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.54.r1773

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Velocity-selective adiabatic population transfer by time-delayed laser pulses is considered. In this process only a narrow part of an atomic momentum distribution follows the "dark" state adiabatically. The remaining atoms are excited and partially pumped into the dark state. We show that this effect can be used for cooling atoms below the photon recoil energy using pulsed laser radiation.
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We present a new scheme of sub-Doppler laser cooling for atoms used in atomic frequency standards, particularly for 40Ca. We perform calculations concerning optical pumping via a velocity- selective state based upon velocity-selective coherent population trapping. Optical pumping on the Raman transition 41S0- 41P1-31D2 leads to population of the metastable singlet state followed by a decay into the metastable triplet state 4P1. The momentum distribution of atoms in that state (with a half-maximum width of about one corresponding photon recoil momentum) is a direct replica of the distribution of atoms in the 3D2 state.
We present a cooling method that should be generally applicable to atoms with narrow optical transitions. This technique uses velocity-selective pulses to drive atoms towards a zero-velocity dark state and then quenches the excited state to increase the cooling rate. We demonstrate this technique of quenched narrow-line cooling by reducing the 1D temperature of a sample of neutral 40Ca{}^{40}\mathrm{Ca}40Ca atoms. We cool selected velocities with the 1S0(4s2)3P1(4s4p){}^{1}{S}_{0}{(4s}^{2}{)}^{3}{P}_{1}(4s4p)1S0​(4s2)3P1​(4s4p) 657-nm intercombination line and quench with the 3P1(4s4p)1S0(4s5s){}^{3}{P}_{1}{(4s4p)}^{1}{S}_{0}(4s5s)3P1​(4s4p)1S0​(4s5s) intercombination line at 553 nm, which increases the cooling rate eightfold. Limited only by available quenching laser power, we have transferred 18% of the atoms from our initial 2-mK velocity distribution and achieved temperatures as low as 4 \ensuremath{\mu}K, corresponding to a vrms{v}_{\mathrm{rms}}vrms​ of 2.8 cm/s or 2 recoils at 657 nm. This cooling technique, which is closely related to Raman cooling, can be extended to three dimensions.
We demonstrate subrecoil cooling of rubidium atoms by velocity-selective coherent population trapping. By adiabatic transfer of the cooled atoms into a spin polarized single momentum state we show the coherence of the trapped state. Our cooling scheme takes advantage of the rubidium hyperfine structure to integrate subrecoil and sub-Doppler cooling. Starting from an initial velocity distribution of twice the recoil temperature $[{T}_{\mathrm{rec}}\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}=\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}(\ensuremath{\Elzxh}k{)}^{2}{/k}_{B}M]$, we cool down to 100 nK $(\ensuremath{\approx}\frac{1}{3}{T}_{\mathrm{rec}})$ within 1 ms, while almost completely suppressing the diffusive heating of velocity-selective coherent population trapping.
We present a new laser-cooling scheme based on velocity-selective optical pumping of atoms into a nonabsorbing coherent superposition of states. This method has allowed us to achieve transverse cooling of metastable 4He^{4}\mathrm{He}4He atoms to a temperature of 2 \ensuremath{\mu}K, lower than both the usual Doppler cooling limit (23 \ensuremath{\mu}K) and the one-photon recoil energy (4 \ensuremath{\mu}K). The corresponding de Broglie wavelength (1.4 \ensuremath{\mu}m) is larger than the atomic-transition optical wavelength.
We have theoretically studied a one-dimensional light field configuration which combines velocity-selective coherent-population trapping with the action of a novel kind of sub-Doppler force providing efficient cooling below the recoil limit. The force is based on velocity-induced non-adiabatic passage of atomic population from the non-coupling state to the light-shifted coupling state. We show for 87Rb that within 0.88 ms 35% of an initial distribution of 12k width can be cooled into a 0.5k momentum interval, and that more than 90% of the initial distribution are still confined to 12k width.