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Single-Photon Atomic Cooling - Raizen Lab - The University of ...

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ealizable method <strong>of</strong> cooling. Surprisingly, even hydrogen has evaded laser<br />

cooling, not because it lacks a suitable effective two-level structure, but rather<br />

due to the lack <strong>of</strong> an available laser source at 121 nm.<br />

<strong>The</strong> goal <strong>of</strong> the work detailed in this dissertation was to develop and<br />

demonstrate a more general cooling method that could potentially be applied<br />

to the vast majority <strong>of</strong> atoms in the periodic table.<br />

1.4 Introduction to <strong>Single</strong>-<strong>Photon</strong> <strong>Cooling</strong><br />

<strong>Single</strong>-photon cooling differs fundamentally from established laser cool-<br />

ing techniques because it does not rely on the transfer <strong>of</strong> momentum from<br />

photon to atom to cool. Rather, cooling is achieved through the direct re-<br />

duction <strong>of</strong> the entropy <strong>of</strong> an atomic ensemble. This feature <strong>of</strong> single-photon<br />

cooling sidesteps the major limiting factor <strong>of</strong> established laser cooling tech-<br />

niques allowing it to be potentially applied to a much larger portion <strong>of</strong> the<br />

periodic table, as well as molecules. To justify these claims this section will<br />

discuss, in general terms, the concept <strong>of</strong> single-photon cooling including, for<br />

pedagogical reasons, its origin and development. A more detailed description<br />

<strong>of</strong> the specific implementation <strong>of</strong> this cooling technique to a sample <strong>of</strong> 87 Rb<br />

will be deferred until Ch. 4.<br />

<strong>The</strong> original motivation for the development <strong>of</strong> single-photon cooling<br />

came from the field <strong>of</strong> plasma physics, where it was shown that an efficient<br />

asymmetric barrier for electrons or ions could be produced by subjecting the<br />

magnetically trapped species to a ponderomotive potential in the radio fre-<br />

8

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