Cooling and trapping of atoms with laser light.
01 January 1986
Recent experiments have shown that it is now possible to cool and trap neutral atoms. We review the work done at Bell Laboratories to confine and cool sodium atoms to T = 2.4 x 10(-4)K in a viscous molasses of photons tuned to the yellow "D-line" resonance of sodium. Potential optical traps are presented, and several ideas for cooling atoms to temperatures of 10(-6) - 10(-10)K are suggested. Possible uses for ultra cold atoms are also mentioned.