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Physical Review Letters

Laser Production of a Very Slow Monoenergetic Atomic Beam

John V. Prodan, William D. Phillips, Harold J. Metcalf

Published Oct 18, 1982• 157 citations
Publisher

Abstract

With use of a resonant, counterpropagating laser beam the velocity of atoms in a neutral, thermal-sodium beam has been reduced to 40 m/s, or 4% of their initial velocity. These atoms have a kinetic energy comparable to the well depth of proposed optical traps. The "temperature" characterizing the atoms' relative motion was reduced to 70 mK.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.49.1149

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With use of a resonant, counterpropagating laser beam the velocity of atoms in a neutral, thermal-sodium beam has been reduced to 40 m/s, or 4% of their initial velocity. These atoms have a kinetic energy comparable to the well depth of proposed optical traps. The "temperature" characterizing the atoms' relative motion was reduced to 70 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.
A thermal atomic Na beam is opposed by a resonantly tuned laser beam. The radiation pressure decelerates and compresses the thermal velocity distribution, bringing the average velocity to zero and reducing the width from ~1000 m/s to a few tens of m/s or less.1 The density of stopped atoms is > 106/cm3 within a bandwidth of a few m/ s. These densities and velocities are suitable for trapping by a number of proposed optical and magnetic traps. Using these stopped atoms, we have demonstrated the first electromagnetic trapping of neutral atoms. The trap, a magnetic quadrupole formed by two separated, coaxial, opposed current loops, confines the atoms by virtue of the force exerted on the Na magnetic dipole moment by the inhomogeneous magnetic field. The time constant for exponential decay of the atomic population in the trap is 0.83(7) s and is limited mainly by collisions with fast background gas atoms. The maximum velocity of atoms contained in the trap is 3.5 m/s, corresponding to a maximum energy of 17 mK.
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.
We have studied in detail the Zeeman-tuned slowing of a beam of sodium atoms. We present experimental data that examine details of the slowing by studying the atomic beam both as it slows and after the slowing process has been completed. A Monte Carlo computer simulation reproduces many of the details of our experimental data. We also discuss an analytic model based on the idea that the slowing proceeds adiabatically—that is, such that slowing atoms are always nearly resonant with the laser. This model allows us to give simple physical interpretations to many of the features of our data.