Trapping of atoms in the near field of laser light

В. В. Климов, Vladilen S Letokhov

V. S. Letkhov, Vladimir G. Minogin

Glen D. Gillen, Katharina Gillen, Shekhar Guha

In this chapter we present an interesting application of the propagation of laser light through linear optical media: the ability to spatially confine (trap) cold atoms within localized light intensity patterns. We first present some of the fundamentals for understanding how light can trap an atom. Depending upon the relationship between the properties of the atom and the properties of the laser light, atoms can be trapped in either localized dark spots, or localized bright spots. We will describe several light patterns for trapping atoms: The tightly localized bright and dark regions in the near-field diffraction patterns presented in Chapters 7 and 8 , The near-field patterns projected to a location far away from the diffracting aperture, and Polarization-dependent movable light field traps based on the near-field diffraction patterns.

Juha Javanainen

We present a theory of laser cooling and trapping that applies to an atom with an arbitrary level structure moving at a (nearly) arbitrary velocity in a (nearly) arbitrary three-dimensional light field.

Steven Chu, John E. Bjorkholm, Arthur Ashkin +2 more

Jonathan P. Dowling

Recent theoretical and experimental demonstrations have shown that blue-detuned laser light, propagating in the annular core-cladding region of a hollow-glass fiber, produces a repulsive, evanescent light-wave potential in the hollow that can be used to guide near-resonant atoms down the fiber.1–4 In this work I show that slight modifications to the hollow-fiber geometry can be used to turn this atom guide into an atom-bottle trap.5-6 The trap can be opened and shut by varying the aperture angle at which light couples into the fiber, allowing the atoms to be easily loaded. This trap has an advantage over other optical atom traps in that the atoms move coherently in a field-free region with only brief specular reflections at the step-like potential walls.