Category: Cold Atom Tools

Tools of the Cold-Atom Trade: Optical Lattices

The famous optical lattice potential picture, from the Rolston group web site (http://www.physics.umd.edu/rgroups/amo/rolstonwebsite/bec.htm )

Last time in our trip through the cold-atom toolbox, we talked about light shifts, where the interaction with a laser changes the internal energy states of an atom in a way that can produce forces on those atoms. This allows the creation of “dipole traps” where cold atoms are held in the focus of a… Continue reading Tools of the Cold-Atom Trade: Optical Lattices

Tools of the Cold-Atom Trade: Light Shifts and Optical Dipole Traps

Schematic of a crossed-beam dipole trap from the Chen group at Chicago http://ultracold.uchicago.edu/csli_expwork

The last post in this series on the core technologies of cold-atom physics dealt with optical molasses, where you use the scattering of light to exert forces on atoms to make them very, very cold. It turns out, they end up even colder than the simple theory would lead you to expect, which is very… Continue reading Tools of the Cold-Atom Trade: Light Shifts and Optical Dipole Traps

Tools of the Cold-Atom Trade: Optical Molasses

The dormouse being stuffed into a teapot, from http://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/alice2a.html

`Once upon a time there were three little sisters,’ the Dormouse began in a great hurry; `and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well–‘ `What did they live on?’ said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking. `They lived on… Continue reading Tools of the Cold-Atom Trade: Optical Molasses

Tools of the Cold-Atom Trade: Light Scattering Forces and Slow Atomic Beams

Ryan McMartin '05 next to the Zeeman slower he built in my lab.

This series of posts is intended to explain the tools and tricks used to create and manipulate samples of ultra-cold atoms; thus, it’s appropriate to start with how we get those atoms in the first place. This will be a very quick background on the basic force used to make atoms cold, and then the… Continue reading Tools of the Cold-Atom Trade: Light Scattering Forces and Slow Atomic Beams

Tools of the Cold-Atom Trade: Introduction

Me and Emmy with some of the laser cooling apparatus in my lab.

I have a small collection of recent research papers that I’d like to write up open in various browser tabs and suchlike, but many of these would benefit from having some relatively clear and compact explanations of the underlying techniques. And while I can either dig up some old posts, or Google somebody else’s, it’s… Continue reading Tools of the Cold-Atom Trade: Introduction