Magneto-Optical Trap

From Qwiki

A Magneto-Optical Trap (MOT) is for cooling and trapping alkali atoms. Note that early on certain groups referred to a MOT as a ZOT (Zeeman-shift Optical Trap), but for good or for ill this has died out.

See how to build one here.

And here's a summary of how MOTs work (PDF).

Miscellanea

Not to be confused with Mot, god of Death.