Cold and dense cesium clouds in far-detuned dipole traps

We study the behavior of cesium atoms confined in far-detuned laser traps and submitted to blue Sisyphus cooling. First, in a single focused yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG) beam, the atomic cloud has a rod shape with a 6-μm transverse waist radius, a temperature of 2 μK, and a transient density of 10¹²  atoms/cm³. For this sample, we have not detected any influence of photon multiple scattering on the atomic temperature, in contrast to previous measurements in isotropic samples. Second, the YAG laser is used to produce a 29-μm period hexagonal optical lattice in which we directly observe the localization of the atoms by absorption imaging. Equilibrium densities on the order of 10¹³  atoms/cm³ are achieved in this structure.