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Physical Review A

Acceptance angle for Bragg reflection of atoms from a standing light wave

Stephan Dürr, Gerhard Rempe

Published Feb 1, 1999• 34 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We experimentally investigate Bragg reflection of atoms from a standing light wave. We focus on the influence of small angular deviations from the exact Bragg resonance onto the reflection probability. The Bragg resonance has a finite acceptance angle, which depends on the light intensity. Within this acceptance angle, an oscillatory behavior of the reflection probability as a function of the angle is observed.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.59.1495

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We experimentally investigate Bragg reflection of atoms from a standing light wave. We focus on the influence of small angular deviations from the exact Bragg resonance onto the reflection probability. The Bragg resonance has a finite acceptance angle, which depends on the light intensity. Within this acceptance angle, an oscillatory behavior of the reflection probability as a function of the angle is observed.
Bragg diffraction of atoms at thick standing light waves requires that the wave-matching condition is fulfilled. This usually means that the atomic beam crosses the light wave exactly at the Bragg angle. Nevertheless, our experiments also demonstrate Bragg diffraction at detuned angles if the amplitude of the standing light wave is temporally modulated with an appropriate frequency. If, on the other hand, the phase of the light wave is modulated no diffraction is observed. Both modulation processes produce frequency sidebands which set up `slowly travelling standing waves' in front of a retro-reflection mirror. Atoms are diffracted at these `almost standing' light waves in a similar way to photons at the travelling sound waves in an acousto-optic modulator. The frequency of the diffracted de Broglie waves is assumed to be shifted by the intensity modulation frequency. The different results using amplitude- and phase-modulated light waves are due to interference between the diffraction contributions of the individual frequency sidebands contained in the standing light wave.
We consider the dynamical Bragg reflection of an atomic matter wave from a finite optical lattice; the resulting energy dependence of the transmittivity allows us to filter out the velocities of the incident atoms. In particular, we show how the coherence length of the incident beam can be inferred from the sharpness of the transmittivity as a function of the lattice intensity. For incident frequencies well inside the reflecting window, the interference of incident and reflected matter waves gives rise to an oscillatory density profile in front of the lattice which can be observed by means of light diffraction. The angular width of the diffracted peaks also provides information on the coherence length of the incident atomic beam.
Bragg scattering of atoms from a standing light wave exhibits Pendellösung oscillations in the scattering probability. For second-order scattering, we have recently observed significant deviation of the oscillation frequency from the prediction for a pure four-photon-type process. To give a quantitative explanation for this behaviour, we present an analytical calculation which takes into account lowest energy momentum states. Our calculation suggests that a transition between a four-photon-type process at low light intensity to a two-photon-type process at higher light intensity is responsible for this behaviour.
We performed extensive measurements on the scattering efficiency of atomic Bragg scattering on a standing light wave up to sixth order and developed a two-state Demkov model to explain the results. Using an effective 2N2N2N-photon coupling between the original and the reflected momentum states and the assumption of a mostly adiabatic transfer we derived the scattering probability. This probability has two factors: an oscillating part which represents the well-known Pendell\"osung oscillation and a part that is peaked in the energy difference between the two momentum states. This last part describes the tolerance on the Bragg condition for angular misalignment. Comparison of the measurements and numerical simulations with this model shows good agreement.
We study Bragg scattering at one-dimensional (1D) optical lattices. Cold atoms are confined by the optical dipole force at the antinodes of a standing wave generated inside a laser-driven high-finesse cavity. The atoms arrange themselves into a chain of pancake-shaped layers located at the antinodes of the standing wave. Laser light incident on this chain is partially Bragg reflected. We observe an angular dependence of this Bragg reflection which is different from what is known from crystalline solids. In solids, the scattering layers can be taken to be infinitely spread (three-dimensional limit). This is not generally true for an optical lattice consistent of a 1D linear chain of pointlike scattering sites. By an explicit structure factor calculation, we derive a generalized Bragg condition, which is valid in the intermediate regime. This enables us to determine the aspect ratio of the atomic lattice from the angular dependance of the Bragg scattered light.
We study Bragg scattering at one-dimensional atomic lattices. Cold atoms are confined by optical dipole forces at the antinodes of a standing wave generated inside a laser-driven cavity. The atoms arrange themselves into an array of lens-shaped layers located at the antinodes of the standing wave. Light incident on this array at a well-defined angle is partially Bragg reflected. We measure reflectivities as high as 3030%30. In contrast to a previous experiment devoted to the thin grating limit [S. Slama et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 193901 (2005)] we now investigate the thick grating limit characterized by multiple reflections of the light beam between the atomic layers. In principle, multiple reflections give rise to a photonic stop band, which manifests itself in the Bragg diffraction spectra as asymmetries and minima due to destructive interference between different reflection paths. We show that close to resonance however disorder favors diffuse scattering, hinders coherent multiple scattering and impedes the characteristic suppression of spontaneous emission inside a photonic band gap.