Graduate Class
Laser cooling
Crookes' radiometer ( Science Museum, London )
Hale-Bopp comet showing two tails - an example of radiation pressure
Nobel prize winners (1997) for laser cooling and trapping of atoms
Zeeman slowing experiments: Andrew Murray at Manchester University and Claude Cohen-Tannoudji at ENS, Paris, France
Animation of laser cooling at JILA, USA
Animation of optical molasses at JILA, USA
Atomic Fountain
Time-of-flight method for measuring the velocity distribution (temperature) of atoms cooled by the optical molasses technique
Atomic fountain, National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, Middlesex
Atomic fountain apparatus showing MOT coils, microwave interaction region and photo-detector, Clarendon Laboratory.
Definition of 1 second (in terms of the frequency of a transition between hyperfine levels in the caesium atom).
Magneto-Optical Trapping
MOT at British Columbia, Canada
Mirrors for the pyramid MOT at Oxford
Pictures of a MOT at Oxford (c.1995):
- showing laser beams,
- another view of the laser beams,
- cold atom cloud black & white,
- cold atom cloud colour,
- ring-shaped cloud
Magnetic Trapping and BEC
Pictures of a magnetic trapping apparatus in Oxford:
- Magnetic trap - Time-orbiting Potential (TOP)
- TOP trap - diagram
- Magnetic trap - Baseball (close up)
- Baseball Trap + high-current wires,
- Baseball Trap + some of the optics for MOT/molasses,
- Making the Baseball coils. (Pictures taken by Dr Simon Cornish in Clarendon Laboratory.)
Illustration of evaporative cooling at JILA, USA
Time chart of temperatures achieved by laser and evaporative cooling
Time chart of phase-space density achieved in experiments
What is BEC? (Link to MIT website).
Nobel prize winners (2001) for Bose-Einstein Condensation
BEC at JILA
Interference of two BECs at MIT
Atom laser (Munich group)
Past Lecture Notes
Lecture 1Lecture 2
Lecture 3
Lecture 4
Questions on laser cooling and trapping of atoms