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Annual Meeting Optical Society of America

Laser cooling and trapping

Steven Chu

Published Jan 1, 1991• 10 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The purpose of this tutorial is to introduce the listener to the rapidly developing field of laser cooling and trapping. Doppler cooling is first discussed followed by the new mechanism of cooling based on ground-state energy level shifts in light fields with polarization gradients. Next, the basic concepts of magnetic traps, optical dipole force traps (optical tweezers), and the magnetooptic trap are considered. Selected uses of these traps and cooling techniques are given to elucidate the broad utility of these techniques.

DOI
10.1364/oam.1991.tujj1

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The purpose of this tutorial is to introduce the listener to the rapidly developing field of laser cooling and trapping. Doppler cooling is first discussed followed by the new mechanism of cooling based on ground-state energy level shifts in light fields with polarization gradients. Next, the basic concepts of magnetic traps, optical dipole force traps (optical tweezers), and the magnetooptic trap are considered. Selected uses of these traps and cooling techniques are given to elucidate the broad utility of these techniques.
This review describes the methods of trapping cold atoms in electromagnetic fields and in the combined electromagnetic and gravity fields. We discuss first the basic types of the dipole radiation forces used for cooling and trapping atoms in the laser fields. We outline next the fundamentals of the laser cooling of atoms and classify the temperature limits for basic laser cooling processes. The main body of the review is devoted to discussion of atom traps based on the dipole radiation forces, dipole magnetic forces, combined dipole radiation-magnetic forces, and the forces combined of the dipole radiation-magnetic and gravity forces. Physical fundamentals of atom traps operating as waveguides and cavities for cold atoms are also considered. The review ends with the applications of cold and trapped atoms in atomic, molecular and optical physics.
The ability to cool, manipulate, and trap atoms using laser light has allowed a new, fast developing field to emerge.The term "laser cooling" describes a variety of methods that use one or more laser light fields to interact with atoms and molecules to cool them down to almost absolute zero.The review paper explores the advancements in laser cooling and magnetic trapping methods, focusing on their applications in achieving ultra-cold temperatures for atoms.It discussed various techniques such as Doppler cooling, optical molasses and evaporative cooling, highlighting their roles in advancing atomic clock accuracy and quantum degeneracy research..The paper emphasizes the importance of these methods in achieving temperatures in the nano-kelvin range without cryogenic methods, marking a significant leap in atomic manipulation and study.
Abstract That the laser cooling and trapping of neutral atoms are interrelated has already been said in the introduction to Chapter 5. We shall, therefore, now consider various techniques whereby cold atoms can be trapped. All the known techniques for trapping laser-cooled neutral atoms can be classified according to a few basic methods. These basic methods are optical trapping using the forces of the electric dipole interaction between atoms and laser fields, magnetic trapping based on the use of the forces of the magnetic dipole interaction, mixed magneto-optical trapping using simultaneous interaction between atoms and magnetic and laser fields, and mixed gravitooptical and gravito-magnetic trapping. Traps for neutral atoms can have a wide variety of geometries and dimensions: (a) macroscopic traps with a size of a »λ, (b) microscopic traps with a size of a ≃λ/2, (c) various combinations of macroscopic and microscopic traps (one-, two-, and three-dimensional) in the case of optical lattices, and finally (d) nanoscopic traps with a size of a «λ/2.
A review is presented of some of the principal techniques of laser cooling and trapping that have been developed during the past 20 years. Its approach is primarily experimental, but its quantitative descriptions are consistent in notation with most of the theoretical literature. It begins with a simplified introduction to optical forces on atoms, including both cooling and trapping. Then its three main sections discuss its three selected features, (1) quantization of atomic motion, (2) effects of the multilevel structure of atoms, and (3) the effects of polychromatic light. Each of these features is an expansion in a different direction from the simplest model of a classical, two-level atom moving in a monochromatic laser field.
We observed a new type of sub-Doppler cooling that employs neither polarization gradients nor magnetic fields, and involves neither a damping force nor significant diffusive heating. Instead, light shifts combined with optical pumping (OP) to levels not coupled by the laser field gives transient cooling, and steady state is not achieved. The time scale is set by the OP rate. We observe both cooling and heating, but often with the opposite detuning from that of steady state. A semiclassical and a fully quantum mechanical calculation of transient cooling agree very well with one another and with our data.
Mechanical effects of light are considered in the first section of Chapter 7, together with their application to “optical tweezers.” This leads naturally to a discussion of laser cooling by a variety of techniques. Doppler cooling, magneto‐optic traps, sub‐Doppler cooling, and velocity‐selective coherent population trapping (VSCPT) are all covered. Then coherent population transfer is analyzed as a counterintuitive way of altering the occupation of energy levels in an exceptionally efficient manner. Coherent transverse optical magnetism, covered next, is the only example in the book of an optical effect mediated by the magnetic field of light. This phenomenon is characterized by intense emission of magnetic rather than electric dipole radiation at only moderate intensities and theoretically enables negative indices of refraction and spin control in unstructured, natural (nonmagnetic) materials. Electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) is also described. This phenomenon is based on tri‐level coherence and can turn opaque media transparent over a limited bandwidth. Additionally, it can intensify high‐order nonlinear optical processes via intermediate step enhancement that is fully resonant. It has been applied to slow or store light as well. In this final chapter, squeezed light is given as an example of a coherent state with altered noise properties. Because the noise in squeezed quadratures of such a state can be reduced below the shot noise limit, it has applications to precision measurements and secure communication. The final section is on cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED). This topic treats the interaction of atoms with weak fields that are enhanced through the use of external cavities. In cavity QED, single photons can interact strongly enough with atoms to exhibit Rabi‐splitting behavior, and the strong coupling limit is considered to be a viable approach to quantum computation.