Laser Cooling and Trapping of Atoms.

We recently demonstrated the first optical trapping of atoms. An important prelude to that work was our earlier demonstration of "optical molasses", a technique for creating a long-lived collection of ultra-cold atoms. This paper presents a pedagogical discussion of those experiments and of the background material needed to understand them. It will be published in "Advances in Laser Science II, the Proceedings of the 1986 International Science Laser Conference (ILS-II).