Abstract
Recent work on optical molasses1,2 has shown that the temperatures of multistate atoms in light fields containing polarization gradients can be much lower than two- level theories predict. On the other hand, the depths of dipole potential wells are not much modified by the atom's multilevel nature. Thus it is possible to realize the early suggestions of Letokhov and Ashkin3 that atoms could be cooled sufficiently to be trapped in wavelength sized dipole potential wells in three dimensions. We have evidence for this trapping in an experiment on Na optical molasses using a heterodyne technique to measure the spectrum of the elastically scattered component of the atomic resonance fluorescence. This measurement of the molasses fluorescence spectrum demonstrates a new tool for the study of laser cooled atoms.
© 1990 Optical Society of America
PDF ArticleMore Like This
R. N. Watts, P. D. Lett, W. D. Phillips, S. L. Rolston, C. E. Tanner, and C. I. Westbrook
THBB1 OSA Annual Meeting (FIO) 1989
M. ZHU and JOHN L. HALL
QTHH3 International Quantum Electronics Conference (IQEC) 1990
Paul D. Lett
MFF5 OSA Annual Meeting (FIO) 1992