Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Queensland, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

We have developed simple and inexpensive laser systems using grating-feedback diode lasers with electronic feedback to the injection current. These grating-feedback lasers can be continuously scanned up to 10 GHz and have a linewidth of 150 kHz. The three electronic frequency-stabilization systems we developed use polarization spectroscopy, etalon transmission and modified heterodyne signals as the frequency discriminators to drive an integrating servo control circuit. These laser systems are used for laser cooling and trapping of rubidium and atomic beam diagnostics. The rubidium D��� line at 780 nm is a strong, cycling transition that can be used for laser cooling and trapping. We use chirped cooling and Zeeman-tuned cooling to slow atoms from a thermal atomic beam. These atoms are loaded into a two-dimensional magneto-optic trap, or funnel. Using a frequency offset of the trapping lasers, the atoms are ejected from the funnel at a controllable velocity. The diode laser systems we have developed are a central component of this rubidium atomic funnel. We will use the funnel's bright, cold atomic beam as a source for matter-wave interferometry. We also developed an ionization detector to measure the flux and the spatial profile of the atomic beam when the background of scattered light makes fluorescent detection difficult. / Graduation date: 1997

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 138-155).

No description available.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2003. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 235-246). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

The experimental realisation of Bose-Einstein condensation in 1995 opened up a wealth of opportunities for probing quantum states of matter. The development of many tools used to manipulate such ultracold samples and the rapid progress on understanding these systems will ultimately lead to great technological advances. The work described in this thesis contributes to this worldwide effort and here we present experiments which investigate the properties and behaviour of ultracold atoms. In the first experiments presented here, we have studied features of Bose-Einstein condensates loaded into an optical lattice formed by the interference of two laser beams. By altering the phase of the lattice at the Bragg condition, we investigate the effect of the phase shift on the dressed-atom states. We find that by applying a +(-)[pi]/2 phase shift after a [pi]/2 (3[pi]/2) lattice pulse, we are able to quickly and precisely load the ground and first excited eigenstates of the lattice. In another experiment, we use a periodically pulsed stationary optical lattice and a tightly-confined Bose-Einstein condensate to investigate the nonlinear kicked harmonic oscillator at quantum anti-resonance. We observe periodic behaviour in the energy of the condensate, however we show that the nonlinearity is not strong enough to enter the predicted chaotic regime. In addition, the amplitude of the energy oscillations damps to an average value and we relate this to dephasing of the coupling across the finite momentum width of the condensate. In the second series of experiments, we use a double-well magnetic collider to investigate cold collisions between ultracold atoms. By creating two ultracold clouds in a double-well magnetic trap and then transforming the trap to a single well, we accelerate the clouds together to initiate a collision between them. We describe in detail the analysis method that we use to extract the partial-wave phase shifts from the matter-wave interference patterns associated with the scattered atoms. We then implement a two-photon pulse, which is applied prior to the collision to convert one of the clouds to a different spin state. This enables the study of scattering between distinguishable states which exhibited anti-symmetric p-wave scattering via the interference with the s- and d-waves previously observed for indistinguishable states. We find the position of the d-wave shape resonance and compare our data to a coupled-channels model.

This dissertation details the development and implementation of novel experimental techniques for cooling neutral atoms. Based on a method first proposed by Maxwell in a nineteenth century thought experiment, these techniques reduce the entropy of an ensemble by allowing unidirectional transmission through a barrier and thus compressing the ensemble without doing work or increasing its temperature. Because of their general nature, these techniques are much more broadly applicable than traditional laser and evaporative cooling methods, with the potential to cool the vast majority of the periodic table and even molecules. An implementation that cools in one dimension is demonstrated for an ensemble of magnetically trapped rubidium atoms which are irreversibly transferred to a gravito-optical trap. Analysis of the experimental results confirms that phase-space is completely compressed in one dimension. The results also indicate that the overall cooling performance is limited only by the dynamics of atoms in the magnetic trap and may be improved with a more ergodic system. Three-dimensional cooling may be accomplished with a modified technique which substitutes a radio-frequency-dressed magnetic trap for the gravito-optical trap. Application of this technique to atomic hydrogen and progress toward building an experimental apparatus are discussed. / text

Recently laser cooling of semiconductors has received renewed attention, with the hope that a semiconductor cooler might be able to achieve cryogenic temperatures. In order to study semiconductor laser cooling at cryogenic temperatures, it is crucial that the theory include both the effects of excitons and the electron-hole plasma. In this dissertation, I present a theoreticalanalysis of laser cooling of bulk GaAs based on a microscopic many-particle theory of absorptionand luminescence of a partially ionized electron-hole plasma.This theory has been analyzed from a temperature 10K to 500K. It is shown that at high temperatures (above 300K), cooling can be modeled using older models with a few parameter changes. Below 200K, band filling effects dominate over Auger recombination. Below 30K excitonic effects are essential for laser cooling. In all cases, excitonic effects make cooling easier then predicted by a free carrier model.The initial cooling model is based on the assumption of a homogeneous undoped semiconductor. This model has been systematically modified to include effects that are present in real laser cooling experiments. The following modifications have been performed. 1) Propagation and polariton effects have been included. 2) The effect of p-doping has been included. (n-doping can be modeled in a similar fashion.) 3) In experiments, a passivation layer is required to minimize non-radiative recombination. The passivation results in a npn heterostructure. The effect of the npn heterostructure on cooling has been analyzed. 4) The effect of a Gaussian pump beam was analyzed and 5) Some of the parameters in the cooling model have a large uncertainty. The effect of modifying these parameters has been analyzed.Most of the extensions to the original theory have only had a modest effect on the overall results. However we find that the current passivation technique may not be sufficient to allow cooling. The passivation technique currently used appears to be very good at low densities, but loses some of it's effectiveness at the moderately high densities required for laser cooling. We suggest one possible solution that might enable laser cooling. If the sample can be properly passivated, then we expect laser cooling to be possible.