| | Encyclopedia of Laser Physics and Technology - laser cooling, Doppler cooling, light forces, ion trap (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-30) |
 | | Laser cooling is usually not meant to be the cooling of lasers, but rather the use of dissipative light forces for reducing the random motion and thus the temperature of small particles, typically atoms or ions. |
 | | A simple scheme for laser cooling is Doppler cooling, where light forces are exerted by absorption and subsequent spontaneous emission of photons, and the rate of these processes depends on the velocity of an atom or ion due to the Doppler shift. |
 | | The method of Doppler cooling is limited in terms of the reachable temperature (→ Doppler limit). |
| www.rp-photonics.com /laser_cooling.html (845 words) |