UC Santa Cruz

Described in this thesis is a new all optical approach to atomic cooling. This approach is ideally suited for waveguide based atom photonic platforms and here we present two design methods to achieving cooling of sodium (Na) atoms using anti-resonant reflecting optical waveguides (ARROWs). The proposed devices could cool Na atoms to 1.47 K corresponding to a mean speed of 40 m/s which is comparable to Zeeman based cooling techniques. The methods presented here however are amenable to free space setups as well as other waveguide devices and are applicable to other atomic species.