Abstract

In a recent experiment, laser-cooled atoms were dropped through a high-finesse microscopic optical cavity for which the single-photon dipole coupling strength g₀ exceeds both the cavity field decay rate κ and the atomic spontaneous emission rate γ.¹ A new regime in cavity QED was thus realized in which single atoms interact with the cavity field for very long times (i.e., many Rabi cycles) and in which the atomic kinetic energy is comparable to or smaller than the dipole coupling energy ħg₀. The mechanical effects of just a few-pho-ton light field should therefore enable single atoms to be trapped in effective potential wells.

© 1998 Optical Society of America