Uwe Brinkmann

Contributing Editor, Germany

Uwe Brinkmann was Contributing Editor, Germany, for Laser Focus World.

Continuous demagnetization cools chromium atoms in an optical dipole trap while minimizing the loss of atoms. The black squares show the evolution of temperature (top) and the number of atoms in the trap (bottom) as the magnetic field is decreased from 250 to 50 mG; the red circles are the same quantities when the field is kept constant.

LASER COOLING: Cooling of Cr atoms by adiabatic demagnetization is loss-free

Feb. 1, 2007

Laser cooling of atomic and molecular gases has helped scientists explore the boundaries of low-temperature physics—for example, by creating Bose-Einstein condensates (whose uses...

Single-shot diffractive soft-x-ray imaging of submicrometer patterns is obtained with light from the free-electron laser at DESY (top).The object pattern containing two stick figures produces a diffraction pattern (middle); a mathematical reconstruction results in an accurate x-ray image (bottom).

Detectors & Imaging

X-RAY IMAGING: Single-shot x-ray diffraction aims at imaging macromolecules

Uwe Brinkmann

Jan. 1, 2007

The desire to image macro- and biomolecules is driving the move to very short wavelengths.

FIGURE 1. The distribution of the Poynting vector z-component (Sz) strength is calculated for the cross sections of a split rectangular (left) and a tube (right) waveguide (h = 90 µm, w = 54 µm, and g = 18 µm; R = 182 µm and r = 27 µm).

Optics

WAVEGUIDES: Slabs with a gap efficiently guide terahertz waves

Uwe Brinkmann

Dec. 1, 2006

Waveguides will become important components of many terahertz optical systems. Conventional solid optical waveguides based upon total internal reflection (TIR), however, have ...