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Number Enhancement for Compact Laser-Cooled Atomic Samples by use of Stimulated Radiation Forces

Published

Author(s)

Elizabeth A. Donley, Tara C. Liebisch, Eric M. Blanshan, John E. Kitching

Abstract

For cold samples of laser-cooled atoms to be most useful in emerging technologies such as compact atomic clocks and sensors, it is necessary to achieve small sample sizes while retaining a large number of cold atoms. We consider achieving large atom numbers in a small system is a major challenge for producing miniaturized laser-cooled atomic clocks, since the number of captured atoms in a vapor-cell magneto-optical trap (MOT) scales as the fourth power of the laser beam diameter. This strong dependence on size is fundamentally set by the maximum spontaneous light force hbar k gamma /2, where hbar k is the photon momentum and gamma /2 is the maximum spontaneous photon scatter rate of a saturated transition of linewidth gamma. We are attempting to surmount the fundamental limit imposed by spontaneous emission by using bichromatic cooling, which is a technique that uses stimulated emission to slow the atoms. We have built a table-top experiment that uses stimulated-emission bichromatic cooling to pre-cool atoms and dramatically enhance the trappable atom number in a small MOT. We have designed the apparatus in a way that will let us test how bichromatic cooling scales with miniaturization. Here we report on our first experimental results of cooling a thermal beam of Rubidium atoms down to MOT capture velocities.
Proceedings Title
Proc. 2010 Intl. Freq. Cont. Symp.
Conference Dates
June 1-4, 2010
Conference Location
Newport Beach, CA

Keywords

atomic clocks, laser cooling

Citation

Donley, E. , Liebisch, T. , Blanshan, E. and Kitching, J. (2010), Number Enhancement for Compact Laser-Cooled Atomic Samples by use of Stimulated Radiation Forces, Proc. 2010 Intl. Freq. Cont. Symp., Newport Beach, CA, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=905990 (Accessed March 28, 2024)
Created June 2, 2010, Updated February 19, 2017