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Center for Nonlinear Studies |
Ultracold neutral plasmas are strongly coupled Coulomb systems. They are formed by photo-ionizing laser-cooled atoms to states near the ionization threshold. Although the ion temperature is initially equal to the mKtemperature of the laser-cooled atoms, it increases dramatically by a few orders of magnitude in 100 ns. This heating is entirely due to the spatial disorder in the initial system. Minimizing this intense plasma heating can happen in two ways, either by reducing the initial order in the system before ionization or by cooling the plasma after ionization occurs. If the disorder-induced heating can be minimized, the Coulomb strong coupling parameter can be increased, opening the way to study more strongly coupled systems under tightly controlled conditions. I will present a brief review of the field ofultracold plasmas and discuss our recent work in minimizing the plasma ion temperature.