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Japanese Journal of Applied Physics

Laser Cooling of an Atomic Beam by Spatial Doppler Tuning of a Resonance Transition

Jun Umezu, Fujio Shimizu

Published Dec 1, 1985• 4 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Cooling of an atomic beam by Doppler tuning is proposed. The atomic beam is decelerated by repeatedly crossing a resonant laser beam at a decreasing angle. An example of the experimental configuration to slow down a two-level atomic beam by a factor of 20 using two lasers is given.
DOI
10.1143/jjap.24.1655

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The laser cooling of a helium atomic beam in the 2s3S1 metastable state has been demonstrated. Using a single-mode LNA (La1-x Nd x MgAl11O19) laser resonant with the 2s3S1-2p3P2 transition, the metastable atoms are cooled by the Doppler cooling method combined with the Zeeman-tuning technique. To monitor the velocity distribution, the Doppler profile of the 2p3P2-3d3D3 transition is observed. As a result, the most probable velocity of the metastable helium atoms, which is initially 750 m/s, is decelerated to 90 m/s.
A production of low velocity and monoenergetic atomic beams would increase the resolution in spectroscopic studies and many other experiments in atomic physics. Laser Cooling uses the radiation pressure to decelerate and cool atoms. The effusing from a glow discharge metastable argon atomic beam is affected by a counterpropagating laser light tuned to the cycling transition in argon. The Zeeman shift caused by a spatially varying magnetic field compensates for the changing Doppler shift that takes the atoms out of resonance as they decelerated. Deceleration and velocity bunching of atoms to a final velocity that depends on the detuning of the laser relative to a frequency of the transition have been observed. Time-of-Flight (TOF) spectroscopy is used to examine the velocity distribution of the cooled atomic beam. These TOF studies of the laser cooled atomic beam demonstrate the utility of laser deceleration for atomic-beam "velocity selection".
A discrete velocity model of the Boltzmann equation is established to investigate the effect of atomic beam slowing and cooling by means of laser light. Due to momentum transfer, caused by absorption and emission processes of photons, atoms are slowed. The Doppler effect, however, allows only selected atoms within a certain resonance range to interact with the laser field. To overcome this problem an external electric field is maintained. Semianalytical results of the velocity distribution as a function of the deceleration path of both ground level atoms and excited atoms are presented in detail and studied explicitly for various values of the laser intensity. A cooling limit is given and compared with quantum mechanical results.
To compensate the Doppler shift in the laser cooling process, two methods were developed:frequency chirping,1 which tunes the laser frequency rapidly, and a spatially varying magnetic field,2 which tunes The atomic energy level. An alternative approach is to use laser light with a continuous spectrum (white light).3,4 Using only a counterpropagating white-light beam will decelerate the atoms in the beam, hut it will not yield a large velocity compression.4,5 To achieve significant cooling, Hoffnagle5 proposed the use of an additional single-frequency laser beam, copropagating with the atomic beam, to counterbalance the nonresonant scattering force from the Lorentzian tail of the atomic transition.
The high velocity of free atoms associated with the thermal motion, together with the velocity distribution of atoms has imposed the ultimate limitation on the precision of ultrahigh resolution spectroscopy. A sample consisting of low velocity atoms would provide a substantial improvement in spectroscopy resolution. To overcome the problem of thermal motion, atomic physicists have pursued two goals; first, the reduction of the thermal motion (cooling); and second, the confinement of the atoms by means of electromagnetic fields (trapping). Cooling carried sufficiently far, eliminates the motional problems, whereas trapping allows for long observation times. In this work the laser cooling and trapping of an argon atomic beam will be discussed. The experiments involve a time-of-flight spectroscopy on metastable argon atoms. Laser deceleration or cooling of atoms is achieved by counter propagating a photon against an atomic beam of metastable atoms. The solution to the Doppler shift problem is achieved using spatially varying magnetic field along the beam path to Zeeman shift the atomic resonance frequency so as to keep the atoms in resonance with a fixed frequency cooling laser. For trapping experiments a Magnetooptical trap (MOT) will be used. The MOT is formed by three pairs of counter-propagating laser beams with mutual opposite circular polarization and a frequency tuned slightly below the center of the atomic resonance and superimposed on a magnetic quadrupole field.