Evanescent-wave trapping and evaporative cooling of an atomic gas near   two-dimensionality
  A dense gas of cesium atoms at the crossover to two-dimensionality is prepared in a highly anisotropic surface trap that is realized with two evanescent light waves. Temperatures as low as 100nK are reached with 20.000 atoms at a phase-space density close to 0.1. The lowest quantum state in the tightly confined direction is populated by more than 60%. The system offers intriguing prospects for future experiments on degenerate quantum gases in two dimensions. 
M. Hammes, D. Rychtarik, B. Engeser, H.-C. N\"agerl, and R. Grimm