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arXiv:1005.3467 · Physical Review Letters

Emerging Beam Resonances in Atom Diffraction from a Reflection Grating

Bum Suk Zhao, Gerard Meijer, Wieland Schöllkopf

Published Jun 16, 2010• 15 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We report on the observation of emerging beam resonances, well known as Rayleigh-Wood anomalies and threshold resonances in photon and electron diffraction, respectively, in an atom-optical diffraction experiment. Diffraction of He atom beams reflected from a blazed ruled grating at grazing incidence has been investigated. The total reflectivity of the grating as well as the intensities of the diffracted beams reveal anomalies at the Rayleigh angles of incidence, i.e., when another diffracted beam emerges parallel to the grating surface. The observed anomalies are discussed in terms of the classical wave-optical model of Rayleigh and Fano.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.104.240404

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We report on the observation of emerging beam resonances, well known as Rayleigh-Wood anomalies and threshold resonances in photon and electron diffraction, respectively, in an atom-optical diffraction experiment. Diffraction of He atom beams reflected from a blazed ruled grating at grazing incidence has been investigated. The total reflectivity of the grating as well as the intensities of the diffracted beams reveal anomalies at the Rayleigh angles of incidence, i.e., when another diffracted beam emerges parallel to the grating surface. The observed anomalies are discussed in terms of the classical wave-optical model of Rayleigh and Fano.
Quantum reflection is a universal property of atoms and molecules when scattered from surfaces in ultracold collisions. Recent experimental work has documented the quantum reflection and diffraction of He atoms, dimers, trimers, and neon atoms when reflected from a grating. Conditions for the observation of emerging beam resonances have been discussed and measured. In this paper, we provide a theoretical simulation of the quantum reflection from a grating for those systems. We confirm the universal dependence on the incident de Broglie wavelength with the threshold angles where the emerging beam resonances are observed. However, the angular dependence of the reflection efficiencies, that is, the ratio of scattered intensity into specific diffraction channels relative to the total intensity is found to be dependent on the details of the particle surface interaction.
We report on emerging beam resonances appearing in diffraction patterns of a helium atom beam reflected at grazing incidence from a grating. The plane ruled grating is mounted in an out-of-plane diffraction configuration. We present the measured angular diffraction patterns as a function of the atom's energy change along the grating normal. This presentation allows us to readily trace back the peak positions and widths to the geometry of the out-of-plane diffraction configuration. In the diffraction patterns, an interference effect due to emerging beam resonances is found to progress side by side with a new emerging diffraction beam.
We observe high-resolution diffraction patterns of a thermal-energy helium atom beam reflected from a microstructured surface grating at grazing incidence. The grating consists of $10\text{\ensuremath{-}}\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{m}$-wide Cr strips patterned on a quartz substrate and has a periodicity of $20\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{m}$. Fully resolved diffraction peaks up to the seventh order are observed at grazing angles up to 20mrad20\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{mrad}20mrad. With changes in de Broglie wavelength or grazing angle the relative diffraction intensities show significant variations which shed light on the nature of the atom-surface interaction potential. The observations are explained in terms of quantum reflection at the long-range attractive Casimir--van der Waals potential.
We report on an experimental test of Babinet's principle in quantum reflection of an atom beam from diffraction gratings. The He beam is reflected and diffracted from a square-wave grating at near grazing-incidence conditions. According to Babinet's principle the diffraction peak intensities (except for the specular-reflected beam) are expected to be identical for any pair of gratings of complementary geometry. We observe conditions where Babinet's principle holds and also where it fails. Our data indicate breakdown conditions when either the incident or a diffracted beam propagates close to the grating surface. At these conditions, the incident or the diffracted He beam is strongly affected by the dispersive interaction between the atoms and the grating surface. Babinet's principle is also found to break down, when the complementary grating pair shows a large asymmetry in the strip widths. For very small strip widths, edge diffraction from half planes becomes dominant, whereas for the complementary wide strips the atom-surface interactions leads to a strong reduction of all non-specular diffraction peak intensities.
Thermal-energy atom scattering at a surface under grazing incidence conditions is an innovative method for investigating dispersive atom-surface interactions with potential application in quantum sensing interferometry. The complete establishment of this technique requires a detailed peak analysis, which is yet to be achieved. We examine peak-width fluctuations in atomic and molecular beams diffracted by a grating under grazing incidence conditions. Careful measurements and analyses of the diffraction patterns of He atoms and D2{\mathrm{D}}_{2}D2​ molecules from three square-wave gratings with different periods and radii of curvature enable the identification of factors influencing the peak-width variations as a function of incidence angle. The effects of macroscopic surface curvature, grating magnification, and beam emergence are substantial under these conditions but negligible for incidence angles close to the normal. Our results shed light on the phenomena occurring in grazing incidence thermal-energy atom scattering.
Since de Broglie's work on the wave nature of particles, various optical phenomena have been observed with matter waves of atoms and molecules. However, the analogy between classical and atom/molecule optics is not exact because of different dispersion relations. In addition, according to de Broglie's formula, different combinations of particle mass and velocity can give the same de Broglie wavelength. As a result, even for identical wavelengths, different molecular properties such as electric polarizabilities, Casimir-Polder forces, and dissociation energies modify (and potentially suppress) the resulting matter-wave optical phenomena such as diffraction intensities or interference effects. We report on the universal behavior observed in matter-wave diffraction of He atoms and He2 and D2 molecules from a ruled grating. Clear evidence for emerging beam resonances is observed in the diffraction patterns, which are quantitatively the same for all three particles and only depend on the de Broglie wavelength. A model, combining secondary scattering and quantum reflection, permits us to trace the observed universal behavior back to the peculiar principles of quantum reflection.