Abstract
Several methods are now available for manipulating, with laser beams, the angular momentum, the velocity and the position of a neutral atom (optical pumping, laser cooling, laser trapping). The basic physical mechanisms used in these methods and allowing one to cool atoms down to the microKelvin and even in the nanoKelvin ranges will be explained. The ultimate limits of these cooling mechanisms will be discussed and illustrated with recent experimental results demonstrating the quantization of atomic motion in an optical potential well. A few applications of ultracold atoms to various fields, such as atomic clocks or atomic interferometry, will also be described.
© 1994 Optical Society of America
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