Designing Optical Lattices: An Investigation with Cesium Atoms

We present a method for creating three-dimensional optical lattices starting from well-known one-dimensional configurations. This method is applied to the case of the lin ⊥ lin molasses and gives rise to optical potentials having orthorhombic symmetry. The vibrational frequencies of cesium atoms in these optical potentials are measured and found to be in good agreement with theoretical predictions. The experiment also shows that the localisation of atoms in the lowest bound levels involves relaxation times which can be as large as 30 ms.