Cavity-enhanced toroidal dipole force traps for dark-field seeking species

Dipole force traps for dark-field seeking states of atoms and molecules require regions of low intensity that are completely surrounded by a brighter optical field. Confocal cavities allow the resonant enhancement of these interesting transverse mode superpositions, and put deep far-off-resonance traps within reach of low-power diode lasers. In this paper, we show how an array of dark-field rings may be created simply using a single Gaussian beam. Such a geometry lends itself to the study of toroidal Bose-Einstein condensates. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.