Laser cooling with a single laser beam and a planar diffractor

Opt Lett. 2010 Oct 15;35(20):3453-5. doi: 10.1364/OL.35.003453.

Abstract

A planar triplet of diffraction gratings is used to transform a single laser beam into a four-beam tetrahedral magneto-optical trap. This "flat" pyramid diffractor geometry is ideal for future microfabrication. We demonstrate the technique by trapping and subsequently sub-Doppler cooling (87)Rb atoms to 30 μK.