A simple laser cooling and trapping apparatus for undergraduate laboratories

摘要

We present detailed instructions for the construction of a pyramidal-style laser cooling and trapping apparatus. This scheme requires only a single beam, rather than the three pairs of orthogonal beams of the standard magneto-optical trap, which greatly simplifies the geometry and substantially reduces the cost. The trap is based largely on low-cost commercially available items and is simple to construct. It is remarkably insensitive to alignment and reliable to operate. Using a single laser beam with an intensity of 1.3 mW/cm(2) we cool and trap more than 4 million rubidium atoms. (C) 2002 American Association of Physics Teachers. [References: 24]