Abraham, Eric R. I.,Kennedy, Sharon Allison.2013-08-162013-08-162003http://hdl.handle.net/11244/651Laser cooling and trapping has led to a revolution in Atomic and Molecular physics. Optical traps created with blue-detuned laser beams are desired for numerous studies. One method of creating such a trap is with Laguerre-Gaussian laser beams. Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) laser beams are interesting because of their orbital angular momentum and radial intensity modes. Previous methods of creating higher-order LG beams did not yield pure LG modes. In collaboration with Digital Optics Corporation diffraction optics have been manufactured that yield higher-order LG laser beams with purities consistent with 100% of the intensity in the desire mode. We then create a donut-mode LG beam with this method to confine atoms from a MOT in both a blue-detuned and a red-detuned optical dipole force trap.vii, 89 leaves :Magnetooptical devices.Laser beams.Physics, Atomic.Atoms Cooling.Laser cooling.Thesis