Abstract

The present work has been stimulated by the possibility of investigating laser cooling mechanisms as a function of interaction time and by the prospects of using stimulated light forces¹ over short interaction lengths to enhance the flux of metastable rare-gas atoms. The study of the dependence on interaction time allows one to make more detailed comparisons with theory than have normally been achieved. Enhancement of the ratio of metastable to ground-state atoms, which is normally only ~10~⁷-10-⁵ in conventional beams, is important for experiments, in which the high internal energy of the metastable atoms is exploited.^2,3

© 1993 Optical Society of America