Laser beams can be used to decelerate gas phase atoms in an ultra-high vacuum chamber. A set of six counter-propagating red-detuned circularly polarized low intensity cw laser radiations originating from a a single source and a quadrupolar magnetic field produced by coils in an anti-Helmholtz configuration can control the atomic motion in a three dimensional space. Under certain optimum conditions of laser detuning, laser intensity and the magnetic field gradient the velocity dependent optical vicous force and the position dependent harmonic force will win over the atom’s tendency to escape and lower the atomic velocity as well as push them towards the centre of the trup. We shall describe the magneto-optic trap developed in our department for confinement of Rb atoms. The trap chamber is kept at one nano-Torr pressure and Rb samples are introduced at a pressure of 10-100 Nano-Torr. The cold atom cloud has an estimated temperature of 130 micro-Kelvin and the number of confined atoms is 106 in a cloud with an approximate radius of nearly 0.1 mm.the cloud can be compressed by increasing the field current. Further work on guiding of the cold atom cloud to a second trap for achieving Bose Einstein Condensation (BEC) will be discussed.
