ATOM TRAPPING IN NONDISSIPATIVE OPTICAL LATTICES

Laser-cooled Li-7 atoms have been confined in three-dimensional spatia lly periodic potentials that are nearly conservative. The potentials w ere formed from the intersection of four laser beams far-detuned from the optical resonance. By adjusting the relative orientations of the b eams, lattices with primitive translation vectors larger than the lase r light wavelength were created. We achieved an effective temperature of similar to 80 mu K through adiabatic reduction of the confining pot ential strength, and prepared ensembles with effective temperatures of similar to 1.8 mu K by initially confining atoms in weak potentials.