Common laser-cooling configurations include optical molasses, the magneto-optical trap, and the Zeeman slower.
This process itself forms a part of the magneto-optical trap but it can be used independently.
The Zeeman slower is usually used as a preliminary step to cool the atoms in order to trap them in a magneto-optical trap.
Modern clocks use magneto-optical traps to cool the atoms for improved precision.
All magneto-optical traps require at least one trapping laser plus any necessary repumper lasers (see above).
The maximum temperature and density of a cloud in a magneto-optical trap is limited by the spontaneously emitted photon in cooling each cycle.
A magneto-optical trap is usually the first step to achieving Bose-Einstein condensation.
First atoms are usually trapped and pre-cooled via laser cooling in a magneto-optical trap.
First, a sample of 10 9 atoms is loaded into a magneto-optical trap, where they remain for just over 1 second.
This cooling scheme starts from atoms in a magneto-optical trap.