Abstract
The use of light presure to cool and stop neutral atoms has been an area of considerable interest recently. Cooled neutral atoms are needed for a variety of interesting experiments involving neutral atom traps and ultrahigh-resolution spectroscopy. Laser cooling of sodium has previously been demonstrated using elegant but quite elaborate apparatus.1,2 These techniques employed stabilized dye lasers and a variety of additional sophisticated hardware. We have demonstrated that the frequency chirp technique of Ref. 2 can be implemented using inexpensive diode lasers and simple electronics.
© 1986 Optical Society of America
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