From Single Atoms to Engineered “Super-Atoms”: Interfacing Photons and Atoms in Free Space

Figure 6

Trapping neutral atoms. (a) Relevant for cooling and trapping electronic levels of . Red detuned light of the optical dipole trap laser (red arrow) shifts all the states of the ground state manifold towards the lower energy. Therefore an atom in any of the ground states, denoted for simplicity on panel (b) by , is attracted towards the region of maximum intensity of the laser. Increasing this detuning from the excited states, denoted on panel (b) by , minimizes scattering of the dipole trap laser photons.

(a)

(b)