Sisyphus Cooling

Sub-Doppler laser cooling in which atoms repeatedly climb polarization-gradient light hills and lose energy climbing them.

Specifications & Metrics

type

Cooling

Core Principles & Analysis

• A type of laser cooling of atoms used to reach temperatures below the Doppler cooling limit.
• Atoms run against potential-energy hills, are excited into a higher band, and fall back into a low-energy state, losing kinetic energy each cycle.
• It works through polarization gradients in the light field.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Sisyphus cooling