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Europhysics Letters (EPL)

van der Waals - Zeeman transitions of metastable neon atoms passing through a micro-slit copper grating

J.‐C. Karam, Jules Grucker, M. Boustimi, F Perales, Valerij Bočvarski, J. Baudon, G. Vassilev, Jacques Robert, M. Ducloy

Published Mar 7, 2006• 15 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Surface-induced transitions between Zeeman sub-levels of metastable neon atoms traversing a micro-slit copper grating are investigated. The quadrupolar part of the surface van der Waals interaction suddenly perturbs the evolution of the Zeeman sub-levels in a magnetic field B , giving rise to van der Waals - Zeeman transitions. Exothermal inelastic transitions are identified by the related deflection γ. In a diagram (γ, B 1/2 ) the location of the inelastic peaks is fitted by straight lines of slopes proportional to |Δ m | −1/2 , where Δ m is the magnetic number change.

DOI
10.1209/epl/i2005-10514-3

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Surface-induced transitions between Zeeman sub-levels of metastable neon atoms traversing a micro-slit copper grating are investigated. The quadrupolar part of the surface van der Waals interaction suddenly perturbs the evolution of the Zeeman sub-levels in a magnetic field B , giving rise to van der Waals - Zeeman transitions. Exothermal inelastic transitions are identified by the related deflection γ. In a diagram (γ, B 1/2 ) the location of the inelastic peaks is fitted by straight lines of slopes proportional to |Δ m | −1/2 , where Δ m is the magnetic number change.
van der Waals interactions between an atom and a planar surface exhibit a quadrupolar component in D(2)(z)-D(2)/3 (D, atomic dipole; ź, normal to surface). This coupling is responsible for an atom symmetry break, mixing levels of the same parity such as metastable 3P0, 3P2 levels of rare gas atoms. The strongly exoenergic 3P0-3P2 transition in Ar and Kr is observed by a time-of-flight technique, using as a surface the edge of a copper slit. The results confirm the predicted strong peaking of the angular distribution of inelastically scattered atoms and give a good estimate of the transition probability.
The endothermal fine-structure transition ( 3 P 2 → 3 P 0 —175 meV) of metastable argon atoms traversing at a velocity of 1030 m/s a micro-slit copper grating the normal axis of which is set, in a first configuration, at 60° with respect to the incident beam axis, is observed. The related differential cross-section (DCS) is sharply peaked at 60° and its velocity dependence reveals the expected threshold at 900 m/s. In a second configuration, the grating is set at an angle of 43°, allowing for a 7% transmission of the incident beam. Atoms elastically scattered by the corner edges of the grating slits are observed in the angular range 1°–4° and the elastic DCS is measured in relative values. In spite of such a widely unsuited geometry, the endothermal process still appears (with a magnitude 10 times smaller than before), because of the surface corrugation. The inelastic DCS is now peaked at 57.5° with a width of about 6°, as predicted from the corrugation angle distribution deduced from the inelastic DCS of metastable N 2 * molecules traversing the same grating.
The paper presents an experiment based on an efficient coupling between atomic Zeeman states (for atoms with internal angular momentum) allowed by the quadrupolar component of the surface- induced van der Waals (vdW) interaction. This exo-energetic "vdW - Zeeman" transition provides a tuneable (magnetic field intensity dependent) beam splitter that was theoretically illustrated by the simplest possible interferometer: an atomic counterpart of Fresnel biprism. The velocity - adjustable atomic beam is here coming across two opposite surfaces (single slit of a nano-grating). For a transverse coherent radius large enough, the atom wave packet is strongly inelastically diffracted by the two opposite surfaces at some distances from the slit to yield non localised interference fringes. The calculation has been done for Ar metastable atoms with a grating of 100 nm period and different velocities of the atoms (560 to 10 m/s). Via the interference pattern (Schlieren image), this device should give access to such novel information as the oscillating part of the complex vdW - interaction transition amplitude. This simplest configuration is not sensitive to inertial effect. As a next step, a loop - closing transmission grating was added to realize a new type of compact interferometer.
One proposes the equivalent of Schlieren photography in atom interferometry. It is based on van der Waals inelastic diffraction by a material surface, in which the atom internal state (i.e., Zeeman sublevel) is modified by the surface interaction. Inelastic diffraction by two close wires, or the two surfaces of a slit, leads to non-localised atom interferences, the amplitude of which is sensitive to van der Waals interactions in the nanometer range. Implementation of this atom nanoscope on cooled metastable Ar* beam will be presented.