Abstract

Dark states created by coherent population trapping are important for many topics of current interest, including cooling of atoms to the Bose-Einstein condensation (EEC) limit, electromagnetically induced transparency, or lasing without inversion.¹ However, the experiments in laser cooling and manipulating of atoms have so far been limited to very few examples of alkali atoms, mostly due to the specific spectroscopic arrangements required. In particular, coherent population trapping is normally generated in a three-level A system, where two absorption pathways interfere destructively.

© 1998 Optical Society of America