Deep focusing of an atomic beam in the Angstrom region by laser radiation

V. I. Balykin, Vladilen S Letokhov

V. I. Balykin, Vladilen S Letokhov, A. I. Sidorov

Gregg M. Gallatin, P. L. Gould

The focusing of a neutral atomic beam using near-resonant laser light is considered. The results of a path integral solution to the Schrodinger in the stationary phase approximation are presented. The details of the derivation of the propagation kernel are presented elsewhere [1]. This approach is general and allows us to deal with "thick" laser lenses. Numerical results for the focusing of a Gaussian atomic beam are presented. These results show that spot diameters on the order of 20 Angstroms are obtainable for many reasonable choices of laser and atomic beam parameters, and that for most of these cases the thin lens approximation is not valid.

V. I. Balykin, Vladilen S Letokhov, В. В. Климов

Arthur Ashkin

A method of stably trapping, cooling, and manipulating atoms on a continuous-wave basis is proposed using resonance radiation pressure forces. Use of highly focused laser beams and atomic beam injection should give a very deep trap for confining single atoms or gases at temperatures \ensuremath{\sim} ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}6}$ \ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}K. An analysis of the saturation properties of radiation pressure forces is given.

H. Oberst, M. Morinaga, Fujio Shimizu +1 more