UCLA

Laser cooling and trapping has been essential to the study of ultracold atoms. Conventionally, continuous wave (CW) lasers have been used almost exclusively to transfer momentum to atoms, which is necessary for laser cooling and trapping. In this thesis, I will describe a technique to laser cool and trap atoms with optical frequency comb generated by a mode-locked (ML) laser, which is another type of laser that is better known as a metrology tool.

While atomic magneto-optical trap (MOT), a spatially confined atomic sample created with laser cooling and trapping, has become the workhorse of ultracold atomic physics since its first demonstration a few decades ago, the first molecular MOT was only demonstrated a few years ago. The main reason for the low number of molecules in the trap is the low number of molecules that can be slowed to a laser trappable speed, which is due to their high likelihood of spontaneous emission into dark states. In this thesis I will also describe a mode-locked laser slowing technique that suppresses spontaneous emission.