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Journal of the Optical Society of America B

Atomic beam splitters with achromatic transverse-momentum transfer

A. P. Chu, Kent S. Johnson, Mara Goff Prentiss

Published Jul 1, 1996• 8 citations
Publisher

Abstract

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.

DOI
10.1364/josab.13.001352

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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 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 investigate the diffraction of a three-level atom from a "walking" light wave composed of counterpropagating traveling waves of different frequencies. The coupling of the two nondegenerate internal ground states by means of an off-resonant Raman transition resonantly couples the initial external momentum state to only one other momentum state. This happens even in the Raman-Nath regime, where the interaction time is short enough that momentum transfer is not constrained by phase-matching conditions. The final momentum state depends on the initial internal state of the atom and the relative directions of the two traveling waves. By using multiple diffraction regions, this process can be used to coherently split a beam of atoms into two beams that are widely separated in momentum space. This type of beam splitter would be useful in the building an atom interferometer.
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.
In this paper we review techniques to coherently split an atomic beam using the dipole force. We discuss the interaction of atoms with normal standing wave light field in the context of atomic beam splitters. The case where the atom enters the standing wave at a small angle such that Bragg diffraction and velocity selective resonances are observed is also considered. An alternative approach to realize a coherent beam splitter based on the optical Stern‐Gerlach effect is discussed. Finally we consider the interaction of atoms with a magneto‐optical potential formed by a polarization gradient light field and a static magnetic field. We show that the Stern‐Gerlach effect and the magneto‐optical potential produce a more effective beam splitting into states with high transverse momentum than diffraction from a normal standing wave.
We propose a scheme for effectively creating a type of all optical device called electromagnetically induced two-dimensional grating by utilizing a four-level coherent atomic medium, which is coherently driven by two orthogonal standing-wave fields. With a far-off resonant trigger field, a spatially modulated cross-phase modulation takes place accompanied by vanishing absorption. The resulting phase grating can diffract the probe beam into high-order directions. When a resonant trigger field is applied on the atoms, the probe obtains gain without inversion due to the atomic coherence effect. And then a gain-phase grating is formed. The diffraction efficiency can be significantly improved compared with that of phase grating. The results show that the diffraction efficiencies attainable by the gratings strongly depend on the interaction length, coherent field intensity, probe field detuning and coherent field detuning. Therefore, the proposed gratings can be used as two-dimensional multi-channel beam splitter which have potential application in optical networking and communication.
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.