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Optics Express

Introduction

Joseph H. Eberly

Published Apr 13, 1998• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The past few years have seen remarkable developments in the ability to control atomic motion by optical techniques. Among the key tools that have been developed for this purpose are the techniques of laser cooling, the significance of which was recognized by the award of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics to Steven Chu, Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, and William Phillips. These techniques have made it possible to cool atoms to temperatures lower than have been produced in any other physical system - around 10(-8) degrees Kelvin above absolute zero - and to confine those in traps for extended periods of observation.

DOI
10.1364/oe.2.000298

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The past few years have seen remarkable developments in the ability to control atomic motion by optical techniques. Among the key tools that have been developed for this purpose are the techniques of laser cooling, the significance of which was recognized by the award of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics to Steven Chu, Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, and William Phillips. These techniques have made it possible to cool atoms to temperatures lower than have been produced in any other physical system - around 10(-8) degrees Kelvin above absolute zero - and to confine those in traps for extended periods of observation.
Abstract Laser cooling is an elegant and important tool that has been useful in many branches of atomic physics. For example, laser cooling has enabled the creation and study of Bose-Einstein condensates of dilute atomic vapors (Anderson et al. 1995, Bradley et al. 1995, Davis et al. 1995) and is a central feature in the latest generation of atomic clocks (Santarelli et al. 1999). The creation of cold atomic gases via laser cooling has provided a new venue in which to study atomic collision processes, nonlinear optical effects, and basic quantum-mechanical phenomena. There are innumerable excellent reviews on this vast subject – good starting points are the Nobel lectures by Chu (1998), Phillips (1998), and Cohen-Tannoudji (1998), as well as the text by Metcalf and Van der Straten (1999).
Forty years ago, twenty years after the discovery of the laser, physicists were developing laser cooling methods for ions trapped in electromagnetic fields.From the 1980s onwards, these techniques were refined and extended to atoms, thanks to the audacity and inventiveness of a generation of pioneering researchers.Actually, it was necessary to succeed simultaneously in trapping and cooling samples of atomic gases in a vacuum at a distance from any wall.Spectacular results followed and extraordinarily low temperatures were quickly reached, very close to absolute zero.The field of "cold atoms" was born, rewarded by successive Nobel prizes, first of which was awarded in 1997 to William D. Phillips, Steven Chu and Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, last in 2022 to Alain Aspect.Gaseous samples of a few thousand to a few billion atoms can be prepared at a few millionths of a degree above absolute zero, which means that the particles move at extremely low speed, of the order of centimetres per second.At these extreme temperatures, the behaviour of matter changes and its properties can only be described using quantum mechanics and the wave properties of particles.New physical phenomena have been discovered and innovations have followed the theoretical and experimental progress of the research.Initially imagined as a wonderful method for perfecting atomic physics, cold atoms have gradually proved to be powerful tools for research in cross-cutting fields of physics, such as condensed matter and even high-energy physics.These atoms are now referred to as 'quantum gases' at such low temperatures that their collective behaviour is modified by the laws of quantum mechanics.
Of the many application of lasers, the one with possibly the most dramatic impact on fundamental physics is laser cooling and trapping: the Nobel Prize for physics was awarded for laser cooling in 1997 [1]. The staggering progress achieved by laser cooling is reflected by considering a thought experiment that begins ‘take an atom. . . ’. Such an experiment was impossible to realize in practice because room temperature atoms move at supersonic speeds and, as atoms are neutral, there was no easy way to grab hold of them. Laser cooling allows one to obtain samples of atoms essentially at rest, with temperatures in the microKelvin region being routine. At such low temperatures, it becomes easy to trap or move atoms with modest electromagnetic forces [2, 3] and a whole new class of experiments previously confined to the realm of fantasy becomes possible. For example, one can throw atoms upwards and use precision spectroscopy to measure time or gravity with unprecedented accuracy. One can place atoms at a desired location on a surface creating a novel lithographic technique or place an atom just above the surface to create a qubit in a quantum information processor. One can take many atoms and cool them further by evaporation to form a Bose-Einstein condensate [4] or degenerate Fermi gas. This last development has propelled atomic and optical physics right into the heart of condensed matter physics and resulted in the award of the Nobel Prize in 2001.
Of the many applications of lasers, the one with possibly the most dramatic impact on fundamental physics is laser cooling and trapping: the Nobel Prize for physics was awarded for laser cooling in 1997. Laser cooling allows one to obtain samples of atoms essentially at rest, with temperatures in the micro-Kelvin region being routine. At such low temperatures, it becomes easy to trap or move atoms with modest electromagnetic forces and a whole new class of experiments previously confined to the realm of fantasy becomes possible. The high brightness of masers and lasers makes it possible to access a regime of atomic excitation for which Einstein’s rate equations are inadequate. Three-dimensional optical molasses using counter-propagating laser beams along three mutually orthogonal directions was first observed in 1985 by Chu et al. The Sisyphus mechanism works well for atoms that are already cold and has a smaller capture velocity than conventional Doppler cooling.
When the Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, William D. Philipps and Steven Chu in 1997 for the development of methods for cooling and trapping atoms using lasers, this was the reward for two decades of investigations not only touching upon the fundamental aspects of the light–matter interaction, but also leading to a range of applications. On the theoretical level, the advent of this field of research in the late 1970s stimulated the development of various theoretical methods for describing the radiative forces by which light affects the motion of atoms. On the experimental level, judicious use of the radiative forces exerted by lasers made it possible to obtain a drastic reduction of atomic velocities – in other words, to cool an atomic vapour. These advances were characterized by a remarkable cross-fertilization of theoretical and experimental innovations. It was not long before applications began to appear in the field of high-resolution spectroscopy, since ultracold, i.e. slow, atoms can be observed for longer periods, and this allows greater accuracy when measuring atomic resonance frequencies than could be obtained for atoms at room temperature. Based on such resonances, the most accurate clocks in the world use laser-cooled atoms or ions. Atom interferometry is another application of laser manipulation of atoms, which can be applied to measure inertial effects, due for example to the rotation of the Earth or the motion of a vehicle, with an accuracy that already exceeds traditional methods.