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Quantum Electronics

Formation of two-dimensional nonspreading atomic wave packets in the field of two standing light waves

Maxim A. Efremov, Sergey Petropavlovsky, Mikhail Vladimirovich Fedorov, Wolfgang P. Schleich, Valery P. Yakovlev

Published Aug 31, 2005• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The formation of two-dimensional nonspreading atomic wave packets produced in the interaction of a beam of two-level atoms with two standing light waves polarised in the same plane is considered. The mechanism providing a dispersionless particle dynamics is the balance of two processes: a rapid decay of the atomic wave function away from the field nodes due to spontaneous transitions to nonresonance states and the quantum broadening of the wave packets formed in the close vicinity of field nodes. Coordinate-dependent amplitudes and phases of the two-dimensional wave packets were found for the j g =0 ↔ j e =1 transition.

DOI
10.1070/qe2005v035n08abeh009145

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The formation of two-dimensional nonspreading atomic wave packets produced in the interaction of a beam of two-level atoms with two standing light waves polarised in the same plane is considered. The mechanism providing a dispersionless particle dynamics is the balance of two processes: a rapid decay of the atomic wave function away from the field nodes due to spontaneous transitions to nonresonance states and the quantum broadening of the wave packets formed in the close vicinity of field nodes. Coordinate-dependent amplitudes and phases of the two-dimensional wave packets were found for the j g =0 ↔ j e =1 transition.
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We study the propagation of an atomic beam flow in an optical potential generated by a two-dimensional (2D) standing wave produced by two interfering laser beams with a frequency that is close to the resonant frequency of the propagated atoms. We extended the equations of motion of an atom in a light field to three-dimensional (3D) coordinate system and calculated the 3D trajectories of chromium atoms that are thermally evaporated and deflected by the gradient force of the standing wave laser field. The polarization and polarity of detuning of the frequency of the interfering beams are varied to study the formation of chromium atoms on a substrate. Our results show that a combination of parallel polarization and positive detuning forms a 2D grid structure. The rest of the combination of polarization and polarity of detuning yields a 2D array of point structures. An optimum size of the point structure with a diameter of approximately 50 nm can be formed with an orthogonal polarization and positive detuning of the laser frequency.
The scattering of atoms by a resonance standing light wave is considered under conditions when the lower of two resonance levels is metastable, while the upper level rapidly decays due to mainly spontaneous radiative transitions to the nonresonance levels of an atom. The diffraction scattering regime is studied, when the Rabi frequency is sufficiently high and many diffraction maxima are formed due to scattering. The dynamics of spontaneous radiation of an atom is investigated. It is shown that scattering slows down substantially the radiative decay of the atom. The regions and characteristics of the power and exponential decay are determined. The adiabatic and nonadiabatic scattering regimes are studied. It is shown that the wave packets of atoms in the metastable and resonance excited states narrow down during scattering. A limiting (minimal) size of the wave packets is found, which is achieved upon nonadiabatic scattering in the case of a sufficiently long interaction time.
The interaction between an atomic beam of two-level atoms and a standing wave light field has beenstudied by the exact solution of a time-dependent quantum system developed recently. When the initialatomic state is choosen to be ground, we find that with the limit of zero detuning the atoms will oscillatebetween the upper and the lower levels with a decaying amplitude. The most interesting result obtainedin this paper is when the initial atomic state is a particular superposition of the two levels, now the systemdoes not oscillate at any time.
We discuss formation of two-dimensional spatial structures of atoms due to atomic diffraction on two crossed standing electromagnetic fields. This analysis proposed for V-type atomic configuration under dispersive atom-field interactions in quantum regime. Localization of the position of atoms passing through standing light wave is initiated by making a quadrature phase measurement on the light fields. We develop the procedure for strong two-dimensional spatial localization of atomic beam within the optical wavelength. Considering atomic spatial localization in the presence of entanglement of two light beams various two-dimensional patterns for V-type atoms are reported.