Laser cooling and trapping of ions and atoms

In the last fifteen years, techniques for laser cooling and trapping of atoms have been developed successfully and many new and important results in high resolution spectroscopy, atom beam interferometry and Bose-Einstein condensation have been obtained. In our country, a few groups are just embarking on these techniques. We describe here the essential components of a laser cooling and trapping set up for Rb using inexpensive diode lasers. (author)