Recoil Temperature

Fundamental lower temperature limit of some laser cooling schemes, set by the recoil energy of a single emitted photon.

Specifications & Metrics

In condensed matter and atomic physics, the recoil temperature is a fundamental lower limit of temperature attainable by some laser cooling schemes.
It corresponds to the kinetic energy imparted to an atom by photon emission.
Cooling below it requires methods that avoid random single-photon recoil, such as velocity-selective coherent population trapping.