Magneto-optical beam splitter for atoms
Tilman Pfau, Christian Kurtsiefer, Charles S. Adams +2 more
We report an experimental demonstration of diffraction of ${\mathrm{He}}^{\mathrm{*}}$ 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.
Physical Review Letters•Nov 22, 1993•88 citations