Catch the atom

Robert Pool

Liesbeth C. Venema

Quantum mechanics reigns at the atomic scale. And although techniques exist to manipulate single photons and ions, individual neutral atoms have been hard to catch — until now.

Lea Winerman

Otto Robert Frisch

Michael Schirber

Nobel Prize: Flashes of Light Catch Electrons in the ActThe 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics honors the field of attosecond physics, which offers a nonblurry view of the fast-moving electrons inside atoms and molecules.

Vijay Pal Singh, A. Ruschhaupt

Single-photon cooling is a recently introduced method to cool atoms and molecules for which standard methods might not be applicable. We numerically examine this method in a two-dimensional wedge trap as well as in a two-dimensional harmonic trap. An element of the method is a small optical box with ``diodic'' walls which moves slowly through the external potential and catches atoms irreversibly. We show that the cooling efficiency of the method can be improved by optimizing the trajectory of this box.