Related papers: Matter wave lensing to picokelvin temperatures

We report on experiments investigating the collisional properties of atoms at ultralow collision energies using an all-optical atom collider. By using a pair of optical tweezers, we can manipulate two ultracold atom clouds and collide them…

Optical lattices have emerged as ideal simulators for Hubbard models of strongly correlated materials, such as the high-temperature superconducting cuprates. In optical lattice experiments, microscopic parameters such as the interaction…

We demonstrate the in situ detection of cold 87 Rb atoms near a dielectric surface using the absorption of a weak, resonant evanescent wave. We have used this technique in time of flight experiments determining the density of atoms falling…

The term `laser cooling' is applied to the use of optical means to cool the motional energies of either atoms and molecules, or micromirrors. In the literature, these two strands are kept largely separate; both, however suffer from severe…

Most cold atoms experiments in microgravity platforms or in Space are achieved using atom chips, leading to limitations in terms of optical access and inhomogeneous magnetic fields. Optical dipole traps do not have these drawbacks but have…

We have studied a general technique for laser cooling a cloud of polarized trapped atoms down to the Doppler temperature. A one-dimensional optical molasses using polarized light cools the axial motional degree of freedom of the atoms in…

We demonstrate experimentally the evaporative cooling of a few hundred rubidium 87 atoms in a single-beam microscopic dipole trap. Starting from 800 atoms at a temperature of 125microKelvins, we produce an unpolarized sample of 40 atoms at…

Laser cooling and trapping are central to modern atomic physics. The workhorse technique in cold-atom physics is the magneto-optical trap (MOT), which combines laser cooling with a restoring force from radiation pressure. For a variety of…

We measure the coherent scattering of light by a cloud of laser-cooled atoms with a size comparable to the wavelength of light. By interfering a laser beam tuned near an atomic resonance with the field scattered by the atoms we observe a…

We report on the implementation of degenerate Raman sideband cooling of $^{40}$K atoms. The scheme incorporates a 3D optical lattice, which confines the atoms and drives the Raman transitions. The optical cooling cycle is closed by two…

Compact and robust cold atom sources are increasingly important for quantum research, especially for transferring cutting-edge quantum science into practical applications. In this letter, we report on a novel scheme that utilizes a…

We theoretically explore photoassociation by Adiabatic Passage of two colliding cold ^{85}Rb atoms in an atomic trap to form an ultracold Rb_2 molecule. We consider the incoherent thermal nature of the scattering process in a trap and show…

We propose to sympathetically slow and cool polar molecules in a cold, low-density beam using laser-cooled Rydberg atoms. The elastic collision cross sections between molecules and Rydberg atoms are large enough to efficiently thermalize…

We present first results on our implementation of a laser based accelerator for ultracold atoms. Atoms cooled to a temperature of 420 nK are confined and accelerated by means of laser tweezer beams and the atomic scattering is directly…

We propose an alternative method to laser cooling. Our approach utilizes the extreme brightness of a supersonic atomic beam, and the adiabatic atomic coilgun to slow atoms in the beam or to bring them to rest. We show how internal-state…

To manipulate cold atoms in spatially constrained quantum engineering platforms, we developed a lensless optical system with a $\sim$1 $\mu$m resolution and a transverse size of only 225 $\mu$m. We use a multimode optical fiber with a high…

Laser cooled atoms are central to modern precision measurements. They are also increasingly important as an enabling technology for experimental cavity quantum electrodynamics, quantum information processing and matter wave interferometry.…

We perform fluorescence imaging of a single 87Rb atom after its release from an optical dipole trap. The time-of-flight expansion of the atomic spatial density distribution is observed by accumulating many single atom images. The position…

We demonstrate direct laser cooling of a gas of rubidium 87 atoms to quantum degeneracy. The method does not involve evaporative cooling, is fast, and induces little atom loss. The atoms are trapped in a two-dimensional optical lattice that…

We measure the coherent scattering of low-intensity, near-resonant light by a cloud of laser-cooled two-level rubidium atoms with a size comparable to the wavelength of light. We isolate a two-level atomic structure by applying a 300G…