Atomic dipole trap formed by blue detuned strong Gaussian standing wave

We have investigated the properties of a standing-wave configuration of Gaussian laser beams which gives a linear array of three-dimensional atomic dipole traps. This is achieved by two counter-propagating waves with different beam waists so that at the nodes the field intensity of the standing wave is not completely cancelled at all radial positions across the beam. This creates an intensity dip in both the axial and radial directions that can be used as an atomic trap for blue detuning of the light. We simulated the behaviour of two level atoms in this trap using dressed state Monte-Carlo method and in this paper we show that it gives good trapping when the residual intensity at the bottom of the traps is small. © 1998 Elsevier Science B.V