Atomic-beam deflection by double-Π-pulse laser technique

Abstract

We have measured the deflection of a thermal sodium beam by a force existing in a field of two counterpropagating short laser pulses. This field was created by a Π-pulse train of a mode-locked (mode) (spacing 82 MHz) dye laser beam, perpendicularly crossing a thermal sodium beam and retroreflected from a mirror behind it. Unlike the spontaneous force, this Π-pulse force is not limited by saturation effects and does not heat up the sodium beam transversally. Calculations yield a maximum Π-pulse force about three times larger than the spontaneous force, being in good agreement with our experimental results.( * ) This work is part of the thesis of B. Nölle.

Colloquium : Strong optical forces on atoms in multifrequency light

“…It has been demonstrated in Na (Nölle et al, 1996;Voitsekhovich et al, 1989), Cs (Söding et al, 1997), Rb (Liebisch et al, 2012;Williams et al, 1999Williams et al, , 2000, and He Metcalf, 2001, 2003). A very useful view of the BF was given in (Grimm et al, 1994(Grimm et al, , 1996, and it is instructive to examine the BF in this modified dressed atom picture because the light intensity is in the appropriate domain.…”

Narrow-line laser cooling by adiabatic transfer

“…Similar principles have been explored [19][20][21][22][23] to generate large forces. In these works, the time-ordering of the left and right-going pulses is fixed by parameters external to the atom.…”

Short-Distance Atomic Beam Deceleration with a Stimulated Light Force

“…A physical interpretation of the force, as first pointed out by Voitsekhovich et al [10], can be given using the old idea of photon transfer induced by resonant optical ppulses [4,11,12]: The light field can be viewed as two counterpropagating trains of resonant beat pulses, A and B [ Fig. 1(a)].…”