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Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology B Microelectronics and Nanometer Structures Processing Measurement and Phenomena

Absorptive masks of light: A useful tool for spatial probing in atom optics

Claudia Keller, Roland Abfalterer, Stefan Bernet, Markus K. Oberthaler, Jörg Schmiedmayer, Anton Zeilinger

Published Nov 1, 1998• 11 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We demonstrate periodic localization of neutral atoms of better than 65 nm behind amplitude, i.e., absorptive masks made of light. With these masks, produced by a standing on resonant light wave, it is possible to create and to probe spatially well-defined atomic distributions. Applications of such absorptive masks range from atom lithography to fundamental atom optical experiments. As two examples we show how to use these gratings as a tool to measure the evolution of an atomic wave field behind a static Bragg crystal and its dependence on the incidence angle of the atomic beam and how to demonstrate the frequency shift of atoms diffracted at a modulated Bragg crystal in a beating experiment.

DOI
10.1116/1.590422

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Nanometer definition of atomic beams with masks of light

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We build amplitude, i.e., absorptive masks, for neutral atoms using light, reversing the roles of light and atoms as compared to conventional optics. These masks can be used both to create and to probe spatially well-defined atomic distributions. The resolution of these masks can be significantly better than the optical wavelength. Applications range from atom lithography to fundamental atom optical experiments.

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Nanometer definition of atomic beams with masks of light

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Summary form only given.Efficient methods to prepare and measure atomic distributions with nanometer resolution are of particular interest in atom optics and for possible applications in science and technology. A versatile and particularly useful tool is absorptive masks, which can be used both to write and to probe fine structures. We combine the advantages of absorptive masks with the flexibility of light structures. We report the realization of well-defined absorptive masks at nanometer resolution for neutral atoms, which are entirely made of light.

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This thesis presents work performed to obtain an optical mask for conducting matter-wave interfer-ometry experiments with ultra-cold rubidium-85 atoms. The optical mask is essentially an absorptive diffraction grating made of light, and it can imprint a periodic density pattern on a cloud of atoms with a period of half the wavelength of the light used. The mask has an analogous effect to quickly passing a diffraction grating through the cloud, removing atoms located at the nodes of the grating (though the optical mask depumps atoms to a different hyperfine ground state rather than actually removes them). The mask should be useful in performing precision measurements of physical constants such as the fine-structure constant α, and acceleration due to gravity g. The thesis briefly expounds major historical developments in atom interferometry and laser cooling. Prerequisites for an optical mask include a functioning magneto-optical trap, and the ability to perform polarisation-gradient cooling on trapped atoms. The theory of these two techniques is reviewed and the principle of the the optical mask is explained. The experimental apparatus that was constructed to realise the optical mask is described, and technical developments made along the way are presented. Finally, aspects of the ex-periment relevant to the optical mask are characterised. The experiment can reliably produce samples of cold atoms at temperatures of around 10 µK, and can use the cold atoms as an optical frequency reference accurate to ∼ 1 MHz. Clear evidence that the cloud of atoms is being density-modulated by the optical mask is presented. Improvements required to make the experiment into a fully-functioning interferometer are also discussed. i ii

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The long range goal of this project was the creation of nanostructures using light fields to manipulate atoms. By passing an atomic beam through one or more standing wave light fields, it is possible to create modulations in the atomic density having periods which are a fraction of the period of the standing wave light fields. Patterns having periods as small as lambda/10 were observed using optical masks and clear evidence for matter-wave effects were established. Several theoretical methods for achieving sub-lambda matter wave patterns were developed, Moreover it was shown that it is possible to create optical lattices having reduced periodicity using Raman transitions in a novel atom-field geometry Experiments were carried out in both magneto-optical traps and atomic beams. In both experimental set-ups, pulsed standing wave optical fields were used to excite the atoms. At some later time the atoms were probed by a traveling wave field, revealing the spatial patterns that had evolved as a result of the atom-field interaction.

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Atom lithography:creating patterned magnetic layers

T. Meijer

Atom lithography is a technique to structure layers of atoms during deposition, using interactions of near-resonant light fields with neutral atoms. The basic scheme uses a standing wave light field, aligned just above a substrate, while a beam of atoms impinges perpendicularly on the standing wave light field. The interaction of the light field and the atoms focuses the atoms towards the crests or troughs of the standing wave intensity, dependent on the tuning of the light field. The focused atoms are subsequently deposited on the substrate, resulting in an array of lines, whose periodicity is determined by the wavelength of the light field. The standing wave light field can therefore be seen as an array of lenses, focusing the atom beam into an array of lines. The first experiments on atom lithography were performed in the 1990s with sodium and chromium. In this thesis experiments with iron are described, which is a magnetic element and thus allows for the creation of magnetic nanostructures. To focus atom beams into structures using atom lithography, well-colimated atom beams are required. The most common technique to create collimated atom beams is transverse laser cooling, but iron has no closed optical transition suitable for laser cooling. Fortunately Smeets and Te Sligte found that even then atom lithography of iron is possible. If the standing wave light field is considered to be an array of lenses, the focusing of the atom beam on a single lens is determined by the local collimation of the atom beam at that position. This local collimation is determined by the geometry of the beam source and the distance of the beam source to the standing wave lens. Using a small beam source (e.g. 1 mm diameter) positioned far from the standing wave (e.g. 1 m), the geometrically collimated atom beam is suitable for atom lithography. Chapter 3 shows what the implications of geometric collimation are on the structure formation in atom lithography. The geometric effects that locally collimate the atom beam on the sample also introduce local offset angles of the atom beam with respect to the focusing light field. Structure formation has been observed with lines of up to 7 nm high on a background layer of 15 nm average height, over areas of up to 400 µm × 6 mm. This indicates that the offset angles can vary over an 8 mrad range, which is more than an order of magnitude larger than the local angle of collimation. The offset angle influence the local geometry of the deposited structures: an increasing offset angle decreases the local line height, increases the width and creates a skewness in the local line shape. The local geometry of the lines has been modelled with a Monte Carlo particle tracking model and the results were compared to experiments. It was found that the highest and narrowest lines suffer from significant broadening due to surface diffusion in experiments, limiting the achievable structure width of iron on SiOx samples to about 80 nm. We have also found that in atom lithography without laser cooling, each standing wave lens is effectively imaging the source geometry onto the substrate. We therefore propose using structured atom beam sources to image more complex patterns on sub-wavelength scales in a parallel way. The reason to use iron in atom lithography, is the option to create magnetic nanostructures. However, in previous experiments no clear magnetic signature of the atom lithographic structuring of iron was found. Therefore in Chapter 4 firstly the magnetic properties of unstructured layers of iron (Fe), nickel (Ni) and FexNi1-x are investigated. These layers are all ferromagnetic, but with a reduced magnetic moment compared to bulk values due to contaminations and crystal growth effects. As a reference for periodic atom lithography structures, periodic line structures are created with interference lithography in a polymer layer and onto these structures thin layers of FexNi1-x are shadow deposited, thereby creating a layer periodically modulated in both height and elemental composition. This periodic modulation in composition has been observed with SEM-EDX on sub-micron scales. The structures showed a clear magnetic anisotropy with an easy axis along the direction of the lines, in accordance with expectations. In Chapter 5, the magnetic properties of atom lithographic iron line structures are presented. Using MOKE microscopy, direct comparison of structured and unstructured parts of a sample is possible, which allows for the observation of clear magnetic signatures due to the atom lithographic structuring. In layers of an average thickness of about 15 nm, no anisotropy is induced by the line structures, while a magnetic easy axis along the direction of the lines is expected. The line structures introduce an isotropic increase in the coercivity of the layers, indicating that the line structures can be considered as isotropic corrugations instead of directional line structures. For layers of 30 nm average thickness and thus higher line structures, a clear magnetic anisotropy is observed for the highest line structures. This anisotropy can be seen as a magnetic easy axis along the direction of the lines, as expected for line structures. However, we also observe a sharp increase in coercivity for applied fields perpendicular to the lines. This phenomenon is intriguing and may be explained by a pinning of head-to-head domain walls along the direction of the lines. In Chapter 5, we also report on the first results of co-deposition of FexNi1-x, where the Fe is structured into lines using atom lithography, while the Ni is deposited uniformly, thereby creating an alloy of modulating composition. Magnetic analysis of these structures indicates that these structures are anisotropic, both the coercivity and the shape of domain walls is dependent on the angle of the applied field relative to the line structures. Finally in Chapter 6, we investigate the possibilities to focus a thermal beam of atoms into a single 100 nm spot using light fields, thereby creating a nanopencil suitable for deposition of nanostructures. A Monte Carlo particle tracking program was developed to model the all optical focusing or funneling of 10 µm sized atom beams to a 100 nm spot. This model included effects of initial beam divergence, magnetic substructure, laser cooling, and spontaneous as well as stimulated diffusion and it was applied to a number of promising light field configurations. The best results obtained for experimentally realistic settings are a beam focused to a full width at half maximum of FWHM = 0.55 µm in a blue detuned hollow beam where atoms are focused towards the dark center, or a FWHM = 0.31 µm in a red detuned axicon light field, where atoms are focused towards the maximum intensity at the heart line. However, in the latter case the focused beam has a flux only 25 times larger than the background flux, which is unpractical for applications. The limiting factors of all schemes are heating due to stimulated diffusion and the limited interaction time available for a thermal beam of atoms. A nanopencil could be possible if it were based on the focussing of a slow and / or monochromatic atom beam, but this would seriously complicate the practical application of such a device.

•Jan 1, 2012•0 citations
We demonstrate periodic localization of neutral atoms of better than 65 nm behind amplitude, i.e., absorptive masks made of light. With these masks, produced by a standing on resonant light wave, it is possible to create and to probe spatially well-defined atomic distributions. Applications of such absorptive masks range from atom lithography to fundamental atom optical experiments. As two examples we show how to use these gratings as a tool to measure the evolution of an atomic wave field behind a static Bragg crystal and its dependence on the incidence angle of the atomic beam and how to demonstrate the frequency shift of atoms diffracted at a modulated Bragg crystal in a beating experiment.
Summary form only given.Efficient methods to prepare and measure atomic distributions with nanometer resolution are of particular interest in atom optics and for possible applications in science and technology. A versatile and particularly useful tool is absorptive masks, which can be used both to write and to probe fine structures. We combine the advantages of absorptive masks with the flexibility of light structures. We report the realization of well-defined absorptive masks at nanometer resolution for neutral atoms, which are entirely made of light.
This thesis presents work performed to obtain an optical mask for conducting matter-wave interfer-ometry experiments with ultra-cold rubidium-85 atoms. The optical mask is essentially an absorptive diffraction grating made of light, and it can imprint a periodic density pattern on a cloud of atoms with a period of half the wavelength of the light used. The mask has an analogous effect to quickly passing a diffraction grating through the cloud, removing atoms located at the nodes of the grating (though the optical mask depumps atoms to a different hyperfine ground state rather than actually removes them). The mask should be useful in performing precision measurements of physical constants such as the fine-structure constant α, and acceleration due to gravity g. The thesis briefly expounds major historical developments in atom interferometry and laser cooling. Prerequisites for an optical mask include a functioning magneto-optical trap, and the ability to perform polarisation-gradient cooling on trapped atoms. The theory of these two techniques is reviewed and the principle of the the optical mask is explained. The experimental apparatus that was constructed to realise the optical mask is described, and technical developments made along the way are presented. Finally, aspects of the ex-periment relevant to the optical mask are characterised. The experiment can reliably produce samples of cold atoms at temperatures of around 10 µK, and can use the cold atoms as an optical frequency reference accurate to ∼ 1 MHz. Clear evidence that the cloud of atoms is being density-modulated by the optical mask is presented. Improvements required to make the experiment into a fully-functioning interferometer are also discussed. i ii
Realization of the analogues of optical components for the manipulation of atomic de Broglie waves has recently become possible through the use of laser-based techniques. The strong fields generated by laser light have already been used to reflect atoms using travelling evanescent waves, and to diffract atomic beams through small angles using transmission gratings formed by a standing laser light wave in vacuo. Present experiments aim to combine these techniques to produce a reflection diffraction grating formed by a standing evanescent laser-light field, and to exploit the larger diffraction angles made possible theoretically by such a scheme.
The long range goal of this project was the creation of nanostructures using light fields to manipulate atoms. By passing an atomic beam through one or more standing wave light fields, it is possible to create modulations in the atomic density having periods which are a fraction of the period of the standing wave light fields. Patterns having periods as small as lambda/10 were observed using optical masks and clear evidence for matter-wave effects were established. Several theoretical methods for achieving sub-lambda matter wave patterns were developed, Moreover it was shown that it is possible to create optical lattices having reduced periodicity using Raman transitions in a novel atom-field geometry Experiments were carried out in both magneto-optical traps and atomic beams. In both experimental set-ups, pulsed standing wave optical fields were used to excite the atoms. At some later time the atoms were probed by a traveling wave field, revealing the spatial patterns that had evolved as a result of the atom-field interaction.
Atom lithography is a technique to structure layers of atoms during deposition, using interactions of near-resonant light fields with neutral atoms. The basic scheme uses a standing wave light field, aligned just above a substrate, while a beam of atoms impinges perpendicularly on the standing wave light field. The interaction of the light field and the atoms focuses the atoms towards the crests or troughs of the standing wave intensity, dependent on the tuning of the light field. The focused atoms are subsequently deposited on the substrate, resulting in an array of lines, whose periodicity is determined by the wavelength of the light field. The standing wave light field can therefore be seen as an array of lenses, focusing the atom beam into an array of lines. The first experiments on atom lithography were performed in the 1990s with sodium and chromium. In this thesis experiments with iron are described, which is a magnetic element and thus allows for the creation of magnetic nanostructures. To focus atom beams into structures using atom lithography, well-colimated atom beams are required. The most common technique to create collimated atom beams is transverse laser cooling, but iron has no closed optical transition suitable for laser cooling. Fortunately Smeets and Te Sligte found that even then atom lithography of iron is possible. If the standing wave light field is considered to be an array of lenses, the focusing of the atom beam on a single lens is determined by the local collimation of the atom beam at that position. This local collimation is determined by the geometry of the beam source and the distance of the beam source to the standing wave lens. Using a small beam source (e.g. 1 mm diameter) positioned far from the standing wave (e.g. 1 m), the geometrically collimated atom beam is suitable for atom lithography. Chapter 3 shows what the implications of geometric collimation are on the structure formation in atom lithography. The geometric effects that locally collimate the atom beam on the sample also introduce local offset angles of the atom beam with respect to the focusing light field. Structure formation has been observed with lines of up to 7 nm high on a background layer of 15 nm average height, over areas of up to 400 µm × 6 mm. This indicates that the offset angles can vary over an 8 mrad range, which is more than an order of magnitude larger than the local angle of collimation. The offset angle influence the local geometry of the deposited structures: an increasing offset angle decreases the local line height, increases the width and creates a skewness in the local line shape. The local geometry of the lines has been modelled with a Monte Carlo particle tracking model and the results were compared to experiments. It was found that the highest and narrowest lines suffer from significant broadening due to surface diffusion in experiments, limiting the achievable structure width of iron on SiOx samples to about 80 nm. We have also found that in atom lithography without laser cooling, each standing wave lens is effectively imaging the source geometry onto the substrate. We therefore propose using structured atom beam sources to image more complex patterns on sub-wavelength scales in a parallel way. The reason to use iron in atom lithography, is the option to create magnetic nanostructures. However, in previous experiments no clear magnetic signature of the atom lithographic structuring of iron was found. Therefore in Chapter 4 firstly the magnetic properties of unstructured layers of iron (Fe), nickel (Ni) and FexNi1-x are investigated. These layers are all ferromagnetic, but with a reduced magnetic moment compared to bulk values due to contaminations and crystal growth effects. As a reference for periodic atom lithography structures, periodic line structures are created with interference lithography in a polymer layer and onto these structures thin layers of FexNi1-x are shadow deposited, thereby creating a layer periodically modulated in both height and elemental composition. This periodic modulation in composition has been observed with SEM-EDX on sub-micron scales. The structures showed a clear magnetic anisotropy with an easy axis along the direction of the lines, in accordance with expectations. In Chapter 5, the magnetic properties of atom lithographic iron line structures are presented. Using MOKE microscopy, direct comparison of structured and unstructured parts of a sample is possible, which allows for the observation of clear magnetic signatures due to the atom lithographic structuring. In layers of an average thickness of about 15 nm, no anisotropy is induced by the line structures, while a magnetic easy axis along the direction of the lines is expected. The line structures introduce an isotropic increase in the coercivity of the layers, indicating that the line structures can be considered as isotropic corrugations instead of directional line structures. For layers of 30 nm average thickness and thus higher line structures, a clear magnetic anisotropy is observed for the highest line structures. This anisotropy can be seen as a magnetic easy axis along the direction of the lines, as expected for line structures. However, we also observe a sharp increase in coercivity for applied fields perpendicular to the lines. This phenomenon is intriguing and may be explained by a pinning of head-to-head domain walls along the direction of the lines. In Chapter 5, we also report on the first results of co-deposition of FexNi1-x, where the Fe is structured into lines using atom lithography, while the Ni is deposited uniformly, thereby creating an alloy of modulating composition. Magnetic analysis of these structures indicates that these structures are anisotropic, both the coercivity and the shape of domain walls is dependent on the angle of the applied field relative to the line structures. Finally in Chapter 6, we investigate the possibilities to focus a thermal beam of atoms into a single 100 nm spot using light fields, thereby creating a nanopencil suitable for deposition of nanostructures. A Monte Carlo particle tracking program was developed to model the all optical focusing or funneling of 10 µm sized atom beams to a 100 nm spot. This model included effects of initial beam divergence, magnetic substructure, laser cooling, and spontaneous as well as stimulated diffusion and it was applied to a number of promising light field configurations. The best results obtained for experimentally realistic settings are a beam focused to a full width at half maximum of FWHM = 0.55 µm in a blue detuned hollow beam where atoms are focused towards the dark center, or a FWHM = 0.31 µm in a red detuned axicon light field, where atoms are focused towards the maximum intensity at the heart line. However, in the latter case the focused beam has a flux only 25 times larger than the background flux, which is unpractical for applications. The limiting factors of all schemes are heating due to stimulated diffusion and the limited interaction time available for a thermal beam of atoms. A nanopencil could be possible if it were based on the focussing of a slow and / or monochromatic atom beam, but this would seriously complicate the practical application of such a device.