Laser Manipulation of Neutral Atoms (Englisch)

Abstract The possibility of changing the trajectory of atoms by resonant interaction with light was experimentally demonstrated as early as 1933 by F. Frisch1 who reported the deflection of an atomic beam irradiated at right angle by the resonant light from a discharge lamp. The field of research really started when it was realized, in the late seventies, that even a modest power of resonant laser light (a few milliwatts per square centimeter!) allows one to achieve huge accelerations, as large as 106 ms-2 for sodium atoms. Significant changes of the velocities of atoms at room temperature thus become achievable in a vacuum chamber of reasonable size2’3 . The next step consisted in the demonstration of the possibility of compensating the changing Doppler effect during the deceleration of atoms, either by Zeeman tuning4 or by chirping the laser frequency5.