Laser cooling refers to a number of techniques in which atomic and molecular samples are cooled down to near absolute zero through the interaction with one or more laser light fields.
The first example of laser cooling, and also still the most common method (so much so that it is still often referred to simply as 'laser cooling') is Doppler cooling. Other methods of laser cooling include:
- Sisyphus cooling
- Resolved sideband cooling
- Velocity selective coherent population trapping (VSCPT)
- Anti-Stokes inelastic light scattering (typically in the form of fluorescence or Raman scattering)
- Cavity mediated cooling
- Sympathetic cooling
- Use of a Zeeman slower
Read more about Laser Cooling: Doppler Cooling, Other Methods of Laser Cooling, Uses
Famous quotes containing the word cooling:
“A little cooling down of animal excitability and instinct, a little loss of animal toughness, a little irritable weakness and descent of the pain-threshold, will bring the worm at the core of all our usual springs of delight into full view, and turn us into melancholy metaphysicians.”
—William James (1842–1910)