Far-off-resonance optical trapping of atoms

Abstract

We confine 'Rb atoms in an optical dipole force trap with a very large detuning from resonance of up to 65 nm. Confinement times of 200 ms, limited only by background-gas collisions, are obtained without additional cooling. A typical trap contains 1300 atoms at a temperature of 0.4 mK and a peak density of 8 X 10" cm . We measure spontaneous photon scatter rates of the trapped atoms to be less than 1.6X10 s ', corresponding to recoil heating rates below 0.6 mK/s. The far-detuned trap confines atoms with a strong, nearly conservative optical force and negligible atomic excitation.PACS number(s): 32.80.Pj

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