Contact: Barbara K. Kennedy
science@psu.edu
814-863-4682
Penn State

Light Pushes Atoms

Caption: A pencil-like laser beam can be made by intersecting two infinitely wide light waves at a small angle. One might think that an atom would absorb a photon randomly from only one of the beams, as depicted in the section labeled a), but Gibble's paper shows that the atom recoils with a speed that is less than it would get from the momentum of either of the infinitely wide photons, with no sideways recoil, as depicted in b).

Credit: Kurt Gibble, Penn State

Usage Restrictions: None

Related news release: Research paper illuminates how light pushes atoms