Recoil Limit
Definition: a lower limit for the temperature which can be reached with some laser cooling techniques
German: Rückstoßgrenze
How to cite the article; suggest additional literature
Author: Dr. Rüdiger Paschotta
Methods of laser cooling involve the transfer of momentum from light to atoms or ions. The recoil associated with the emission or absorption of a single photon by an atom typically leads to a velocity change of the order of a few cm/s. These discrete velocity changes result in a limit to the reachable temperature of a cloud of atoms or ions in an optical trap.
The recoil limit can be defined as the lowest temperature reachable with laser cooling methods which involve a permanent interaction of the cooled atoms with light. It is given by the equation
where λ is the wavelength of the light and m is the mass of the atoms. At this temperature, the thermal energy equals the energy of an atom with a momentum equal to the photon momentum. Typical values for the recoil limit of atoms are of the order of 1 μK.
The recoil limit can be approached (although not fully reached) with polarization gradient cooling (→ Sisyphus cooling). However, temperatures below the recoil limit have been achieved with velocity-selective coherent population trapping, where atoms become trapped in an electronic state where they do no longer interact with light. This shows that the recoil limit is not a fundamental limit which applies to all laser cooling methods.
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Bibliography
| [1] | A. Aspect et al., “Laser cooling below the one-photon recoil energy by velocity-selective coherent population trapping”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 61 (7), 826 (1988), doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.61.826 |
| [2] | M. Kasevich and S. Chu, “Laser cooling below a photon recoil with three-level atoms”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 69 (12), 1741 (1992), doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.69.1741 |
| [3] | H. Katori et al., “Magneto-optical trapping and cooling of strontium atoms down to the photon recoil temperature”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 82 (6), 1116 (1999), doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.82.1116 |
See also: Doppler limit, laser cooling, photons
and other articles in the category quantum optics
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