Laser manipulation of atoms and particles
Abstract
A variety of powerful techniques to control the position and velocity of neutral particles has been developed. As examples of this new ability, lasers have been used to construct a variety of traps, to cool atoms to temperatures below 3 x 10 exp -6th K, and to create atomic fountains that may give a hundredfold increase in the accuracy of atomic clocks. Bacteria can be held with laser traps while they are being viewed in an optical microscope, and organelles within a cell can be manipulated without puncturing the cell wall. Single molecules of DNA can now be stretched out and pinned down in a water solution with optical traps. These new capabilities may soon be applied to a wide variety of scientific questions as diverse as precision measurements of fundamental symmetries in physics and the study of biochemistry on a single molecule basis.
- Publication:
-
Science
- Pub Date:
- August 1991
- DOI:
- 10.1126/science.253.5022.861
- Bibcode:
- 1991Sci...253..861C
- Keywords:
-
- Cryotrapping;
- Laser Applications;
- Neutral Atoms;
- Neutral Particles;
- Trapped Particles;
- Atomic Clocks;
- Biochemistry;
- Computerized Simulation;
- Lasers and Masers