Abstract

In laser manipulation of atoms, producing a dense and spatially localized source of atoms is of great interest for a number of applications. We have experimentally demonstrated that the combination of both cooling with a gray molasses,¹ and trapping in a nondissipative trap, coming from a far-detuned focused laser beam,² leads to a rod-shaped atom cloud with a very small transverse width (σ = 7 µm).

© 1997 Optical Society of America