A simple laser cooling and trapping apparatus for undergraduate laboratories

We present detailed instructions for the construction of a pyramidal-style laser cooling and trapping apparatus. This scheme requires only a single beam, rather than the three pairs of orthogonal beams of the standard magneto-optical trap, which greatly simplifies the geometry and substantially reduces the cost. The trap is based largely on low-cost commercially available items and is simple to construct. It is remarkably insensitive to alignment and reliable to operate. Using a single laser beam with an intensity of 1.3 mW/cm2 we cool and trap more than 4 million rubidium atoms.

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