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Europhysics Letters (EPL)

Laser Preparation of a Monoenergetic Sodium Beam

J. Nellessen, K. Sengstock, Jörg Helge Müller, Wolfgang A. Ertmer

Published May 15, 1989• 14 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A sodium atomic beam has been decelerated and cooled by a counterpropagating laser beam. Subsequently only these slow and cooled atoms with a temperature of less than 30 mK have been deflected up to an angle of 6°, using a part of the cooling laser beam. These atoms form a pure, well-defined and nearly monoenergetic slow atomic beam, as desired for many applications of cold atoms.

DOI
10.1209/0295-5075/9/2/007

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Physical Review A•Feb 1, 1994•15 citations
A sodium atomic beam has been decelerated and cooled by a counterpropagating laser beam. Subsequently only these slow and cooled atoms with a temperature of less than 30 mK have been deflected up to an angle of 6°, using a part of the cooling laser beam. These atoms form a pure, well-defined and nearly monoenergetic slow atomic beam, as desired for many applications of cold atoms.
A sodium atomic beam has been decelerated and laser cooled to a longitudinal beam temperature of less than 30 mK. Subsequently these slow atoms with a typical velocity of 100 m/sec were selectively deflected by laser-light forces. The deflection angle was typically 30°. The deflection scheme permits a stabilization of the transverse velocities in the deflected atomic beam down to the quantum-limit temperature for one dimension (0.7 × 240 μK). The experimentally achieved temperatures are of the order of 1 mK.
Atomic-beam sodium atoms were slowed to zero or negative velocities by counterpropagating laser radiation which was frequency chirped with precise electro-optic modulation techniques. The resulting "gas cloud" had a temperature below 50 mK and a density above 106{10}^{6}106 atoms/cm3{\mathrm{cm}}^{3}cm3. We mention future possibilities in atom slowing, deflection, and storage.
We have produced a sample of free sodium atoms at rest in the laboratory by decelerating atoms in an atomic beam using momentum transfer from a counterpropagating, resonant laser beam. These atoms have a density of about 105{10}^{5}105 ${\mathrm{cm}}^{\ensuremath{-}3}$ and a velocity spread of about 15 m/s full width at half maximum corresponding to a kinetic temperature less than 100 mK.