REFLECTION COOLING OF SODIUM ATOMS IN AN EVANESCENT LIGHT-WAVE

Studied in this work is the cooling of a beam of sodium atoms upon its reflection from an evanescent light wave. The cooling mechanism is as sociated with the spontaneous transitions of the atoms between the hyp erfine-structure sublevels of the ground state. Subject to studies is the relationship between the reflection angle of the atoms and the fre quency detuning and intensity of the light wave. It is demonstrated ex perimentally that the transverse atomic momentum component can be redu ced by more than one half (Delta p(perpendicular to)/p(perpendicular t o)congruent to 0.5) in a single reflection event, the number of cooled atoms in the reflected beam exceeding 50%. It should be noted that th e loss of atoms in reflection can be made as small as desired, and so the reflection cooling cycle can be repeated many times over.