Laser cooling of rubidium atoms from background vapor in diffuse light

Collective scattering of light from disordered atomic clouds

“…We have verified that the oscillations of an atom in the optical potential of another atom kept at a fixed position also results in an increase (decrease) of kinetic energy for positive (negative) detuning. These results of mutual heating or cooling is thus reminiscent of the asymmetry reported in multiple-scattering based atom cooling schemes, [86][87][88] but differs from previous works on optical binding of dielectric spheres, which did not study the sign of the particles refractive index.…”

“…Fig. 4(a) presents the stability diagram of the r ≈ λ equilibrium point, for a pair of atoms with an initial temperature of T = 1µK (throughout this work, the conversion between temperature and velocity is realized using the 87 Rb atom mass m = 1.419 × 10 −25 kg). For zero angular momentum, the initial temperature is associated to the radial degree of freedom T = mv 2 /2.…”

Scheme for a compact cold-atom clock based on diffuse laser cooling in a cylindrical cavity

“…A more attractive method to cool atoms for a POP clock is diffuse light cooling [6][7][8]. Typically, diffuse light is generated inside a sphere by diffuse multi-reflection of injected lasers on the inner surface of the sphere.…”

Laser cooling of rubidium 85 atoms in integrating sphere

“…Figure 1 shows the energy levels of D 2 transition for 85 Rb. The transitions used for cooling is similar to that used in 87 Rb [14] . Figure 2 gives the experimental schematic, which has been described in Ref.…”

“…[13], the influence of configuration in designing the integrating sphere has been examined carefully. In 2009, we have demonstrated the diffuse laser cooling of 87 Rb atoms in an integrating sphere [14] , measured the lifetime and loading time [15,16] , and demonstrated its application for compact atomic clock [17] . In this letter, we cool 85 Rb atoms in an integrating sphere and compare this with 87 Rb.…”