Direct frequency comb laser cooling and trapping
Direct frequency comb laser cooling and trapping
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DOI：
10.1103/physrevx.6.041004
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发表时间：
2016-03
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
A. Jayich;X. Long;W. C. Campbell
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
A. Jayich;X. Long;W. C. Campbell
连续波(CW)激光器是通过激光冷却和俘获产生超冷原子和分子的使能技术。当需要一个高度可控的量子系统时，产生的慢速运动粒子的原始样本实际上是基础科学和应用科学的起点。最近，激光冷却原子在量子信息、研究暗能量、量子化学和量子传感器方面取得了重大进展。然而，连续激光技术目前将激光冷却和捕获限制在特殊类型的元素上，这些元素不包括高度丰富和化学相关的原子，如氢、碳、氧和氮。在这里，我们证明了利用光学频率梳的多普勒冷却和俘获可以提供一种途径来捕获光谱不服从连续波激光的超冷原子。我们通过光学频率梳驱动双光子跃迁来激光冷却原子气体，这是一个每个梳齿都一致贡献的有效过程。我们将这一技术扩展到创建磁光陷阱(MOT)，这是一个用于积累激光冷却的原子以供进一步研究的电磁烧杯。我们的结果表明，光学频率梳提供的高效频率转换可以为生产捕获的、超冷的自然界最丰富的积木样本以及反氢提供关键成分。因此，这里展示的技术可能会使分子生物学等截然不同的领域取得进展，并在标准模型之外探索物理学。
Continuous wave (CW) lasers are the enabling technology for producing ultracold atoms and molecules through laser cooling and trapping. The resulting pristine samples of slow moving particles are the de facto starting point for both fundamental and applied science when a highly-controlled quantum system is required. Laser cooled atoms have recently led to major advances in quantum information, the search to understand dark energy, quantum chemistry, and quantum sensors. However, CW laser technology currently limits laser cooling and trapping to special types of elements that do not include highly abundant and chemically relevant atoms such as hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen. Here, we demonstrate that Doppler cooling and trapping by optical frequency combs may provide a route to trapped, ultracold atoms whose spectra are not amenable to CW lasers. We laser cool a gas of atoms by driving a two-photon transition with an optical frequency comb, an efficient process to which every comb tooth coherently contributes. We extend this technique to create a magneto-optical trap (MOT), an electromagnetic beaker for accumulating the laser-cooled atoms for further study. Our results suggest that the efficient frequency conversion offered by optical frequency combs could provide a key ingredient for producing trapped, ultracold samples of nature's most abundant building blocks, as well as antihydrogen. As such, the techniques demonstrated here may enable advances in fields as disparate as molecular biology and the search for physics beyond the standard model.