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Optics Letters

Demonstration of a nonmagnetic blazed-grating atomic beam splitter

Kent S. Johnson, A. P. Chu, T. W. Lynn, Karl K. Berggren, M. S. Shahriar, Mara Goff Prentiss

Published Jun 1, 1995• 23 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We demonstrate a coherent atomic beam splitter for metastable helium atoms, based on the diffraction of atomic matter waves from a blazed phase grating. The beam splitter is created by driving the two transitions of a three-level V system with differentially detuned standing light waves that have a relative spatial phase shift of pi/2. The light f ields create a potential that is approximately triangular as a function of position in the laser field. Splittings of 38 times the photon momentum have been observed.

DOI
10.1364/ol.20.001310

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arXiv:0811.3394•Physical Review A•Apr 9, 2009•2 citations
We demonstrate a coherent atomic beam splitter for metastable helium atoms, based on the diffraction of atomic matter waves from a blazed phase grating. The beam splitter is created by driving the two transitions of a three-level V system with differentially detuned standing light waves that have a relative spatial phase shift of pi/2. The light f ields create a potential that is approximately triangular as a function of position in the laser field. Splittings of 38 times the photon momentum have been observed.
We present a generalized excitation scheme and achromatic geometries for coherent diffraction of three-level atoms from a nonmagnetic, blazed phase grating. The phase grating is formed by differentially detuned standing waves with a relative spatial phase shift of π/2 and can be realized for transitions other than J = 0/1 → J = 1. The use of the differential detuning to create the phase grating allows for geometries in which the longitudinal atomic motion is coupled to the diffraction process. We describe a geometry that yields two regimes of beam splitting in which all longitudinal atomic velocities receive the same momentum transfer from the phase grating. We propose to call this type of beam splitter achromatic.
We report an experimental demonstration of diffraction of He∗{\mathrm{He}}^{\mathrm{*}}He∗ atoms from a magneto-optical grating. The grating was produced by the interaction of three-level atoms with a light field of spatially varying polarization and a magnetic field. For a light shift matched to the Zeeman shift, a two-peaked diffraction pattern was observed, corresponding to a momentum splitting of 42\ensuremath{\Elzxh}k. The effect of changing the polarizations of the light field was investigated. The diffraction from the magneto-optical grating is compared directly with the diffraction of two-level atoms from a standing light wave and it is shown, that the magneto-optical interaction leads to more efficient coupling into high order momentum states.
Abstract Atomic beam splitters are fundamental components of atom interferometers, with broad applications in high sensitivity metrology and integrated atom optics devices. In this work, we theoretically demonstrate coherent beam splitting of a metastable helium atomic beam using a pulsed bichromatic standing wave. Our key innovation is a fully self-consistent model coupling the optical Bloch equations - which include spontaneous emission via a Lindblad term - with the classical equations of atomic motion, enabling the simulation of real-time splitting dynamics. This allows us to simulate the real-time dynamics and identify optimal experimental parameters neglected in prior splitter studies. Crucially, we find that the optimal standing-wave phase difference is ϕ= 3π/4, not π/2, maximizing the distinction between the dynamical pathways for splitting the metastable helium beam (2 3 S 1 →3 3 P 2 transition). We propose and validate the use of optical pulses shorter than the spontaneous emission lifetime to suppress decoherence. Monte Carlo simulations predict a clean binary split with a tunable splitting angle to 56 mrad, corresponding to 56 ħk momentum transfer, and a splitting efficiency of 55 - 83% via detuning.
We investigate schemes for the clean splitting of beams of three-level atoms using two standing-wave laser fields within an optical cavity. The proposed beam splitter is shown to work for atoms in the \ensuremath{\Lambda} ladder, and ssV configurations. For appropriate values of Rabi frequencies and detunings, we obtain a triangular type of potential for the atomic states of interest. As well as modeling the coherent evolution of the systems, we have used quantum Monte Carlo wave-function methods to model the effects of spontaneous emission on the resulting diffraction pattern, finding significant differences between the three configurations. We also investigate the limits of the Raman-Nath approximation for our systems, using the symmetric split-operator technique to include the effects of the kinetic term in the Hamiltonian. We also present the results of calculations in which the split output beams are recombined, demonstrating the expected interference for differently prepared input beams. In comparison with two-level beam splitters using a single standing wave, we obtain a superior splitting, while, in comparison with magneto-optical beam splitters, our system possesses the worthwhile practical advantages of experimental simplicity.
In this letter we present a theoretical study of the coherent diffraction of three-level atoms from a light field with a polarization gradient (counterpropagating crossed linearly polarized beams) and a static magnetic field applied parallel to the laser propagation direction. We show that for a particular ratio of the laser field intensity and the magnetic-field strength, there occurs a resonance between the Larmor precession of the magnetic alignment and the Rabi oscillations. On resonance the atomic wave function is diffracted by an approximately triangular optical potential which leads to a very efficient coherent splitting of the atomic beam. The proposed configuration is particularly interesting in relation to atom interferometry, when efficient coherent beam splitters for atoms are required.
We report on a technique to split an atomic beam coherently with an easily adjustable splitting angle. In our experiment metastable helium atoms in the ∣1s2s3S1M=1⟩|{1s2s}{^{3}S}_{1}\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}M=1⟩∣1s2s3S1​M=1⟩ state diffract from a polarization gradient light field formed by counterpropagating ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}^{+}$ and ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ polarized laser beams in the presence of a homogeneous magnetic field. In the near-adiabatic regime, energy conservation allows the resonant exchange between magnetic energy and kinetic energy. As a consequence, symmetric diffraction of ∣M=0⟩|M=0⟩∣M=0⟩ or $|M=\ensuremath{-}1⟩$ atoms in a single order is achieved, where the order can be chosen freely by tuning the magnetic field. We present experimental results up to sixth-order diffraction ($24\ensuremath{\hbar}k$ momentum splitting, i.e., 2.21 m/s in transverse velocity) and present a simple theoretical model that stresses the similarity with conventional Bragg scattering. The resulting device constitutes a flexible, adjustable, large-angle, three-way coherent atomic beam splitter with many potential applications in atom optics and atom interferometry.