Large-angle beam deflection of a laser-cooled sodium beam

A sodium atomic beam has been decelerated and laser cooled to a longitudinal beam temperature of less than 30 mK. Subsequently these slow atoms with a typical velocity of 100 m/sec were selectively deflected by laser-light forces. The deflection angle was typically 30°. The deflection scheme permits a stabilization of the transverse velocities in the deflected atomic beam down to the quantum-limit temperature for one dimension (0.7 × 240 μK). The experimentally achieved temperatures are of the order of 1 mK.