Three-dimensional laser cooling at the Doppler limit

Abstract

Many predictions of Doppler cooling theory of two-level atoms have never been verified in a three-dimensional geometry, including the celebrated minimum achievable temperature $\hslash \Gamma /2k_B$, where $\Gamma$ is the transition linewidth. Here, we show that, despite their degenerate level structure, we can use Helium-4 atoms to achieve a situation in which these predictions can be verified. We make measurements of atomic temperatures, magneto-optical trap sizes, and the sensitivity of optical molasses to a power imbalance in the laser beams, finding excellent agreement with the Doppler theory. We show that the special properties of Helium, particularly its small mass and narrow transition linewidth, prevent effective sub-Doppler cooling with red-detuned optical molasses.

8 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (9)

• Magneto-optical trapping of a diatomic molecule
• Doppler cooling and trapping on forbidden transitions
• Λ-enhanced Sub-Doppler Cooling of Lithium Atoms in D1 Gray Molasses
• Quenched Narrow-Line Laser Cooling of 40Ca to Near the Photon Recoil Limit
• Creation of Quantum-Degenerate Gases of Ytterbium in a Compact 2D-/3D-MOT Setup
• A proposal for laser cooling antihydrogen atoms
• An extra-heating mechanism in Doppler-cooling experiments
• Doppler cooling to the Quantum limit
• Optimizing the production of metastable calcium atoms in a magneto-optical trap

Cited by in corpus (16)

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• Fast production of Bose-Einstein condensates of metastable Helium
• Magneto-optical trap of a Group III atom
• Double-degenerate Fermi mixtures of ${}^6$Li and ${}^{53}$Cr atoms
• Preparation of circular Rydberg states in helium using the crossed fields method
• Direct magneto-optical compression of an effusive atomic beam for high-resolution focused ion beam application
• Magneto-optical trapping of mercury at high phase space density
• Measurements and analysis of response function of cold atoms in optical molasses
• Shifting the phase of a coherent beam with a ${}^{174}$Yb${}^{+}$ ion: influence of the scattering cross section
• Cavity Optomechanics with a Laser Engineered Optical Trap
• Simple method for producing Bose-Einstein condensates of metastable helium using a single beam optical dipole trap
• Laser Cooling at Resonance
• Approaching Landauer's Bound In A Spin-Encoded Quantum Computer
• Nonequilibrium steady state in a large magneto-optical trap