Abstract
Laser-cooled trapped-ion crystals offer a unique opportunity for studying die interactions between atoms. The ions are essentially motionless and lie at a known and controllable distance from one another, permitting qualitatively new studies of atom–atom interactions not accessible in a gas cell or an atomic beam. In conventional traps the ion–ion separation is so large that these interactions (other than Coulomb) cannot be observed. We have previously developed a microscopic planar Paul trap1 that is small and strong enough to bring the ion separation into the submicrometer region, where the atoms’ interactions become important, A search is underway for the superradiant coupling of two atoms, which manifests itself as a variation of the spontaneous-emission rate with the ion–ion distance.
© 1993 Optical Society of America
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