Laser manipulation of neutral atoms has been used to count individual krypton-85 and krypton-81 atoms present in a natural krypton gas sample with isotopic abundances in the range of 10
−11
and 10
−13
, respectively. This method of isotope trace analysis is free of contamination from other isotopes and elements and can be applied to several different isotope tracers for a wide range of applications. The demonstrated detection efficiency is 1 × 10
−7
. System improvements could increase the efficiency by many orders of magnitude.
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