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Creating a large angle coherent atomic beamsplitter without a magnetic field

Kent S. Johnson, J Dagdigian Paul, A. P. Chu, M. S. Shahriar, Karl K. Berggren, Mara Goff Prentiss

Published May 8, 1994• 1 citation
OpenAlex

Abstract

Many atom interferometer applications would benefit from large angle atomic beamsplitters with narrow distributions. The interaction between a magnetic field and two standing wave laser fields can provide such a beamsplitter.1 Unfortunately, the required magnetic fields are undesirable in many interferometer applications, and few atomic systems have a suitable transition.

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Quantum-Atom Optics Downunder (QAO)•Jan 1, 2007•0 citations
Many atom interferometer applications would benefit from large angle atomic beamsplitters with narrow distributions. The interaction between a magnetic field and two standing wave laser fields can provide such a beamsplitter.1 Unfortunately, the required magnetic fields are undesirable in many interferometer applications, and few atomic systems have a suitable transition.
Two recent experiments demonstrating novel atomic lenses—one using a free standing Fresnel zone plate and the other using an optical standing wave with large (40 μm) period—will be discussed. In addition, an experiment demonstrating the splitting of an atomic beam by the optical Stern–Gerlach effect will be described. In this effect, a beam of (two-level) atoms is coherently split into two paths by an exactly resonant optical field gradient, each path containing atoms in one of the two dressed states. The field gradient was derived from a large period standing wave, produced by bouncing a laser beam from a glass surface at grazing incidence. The experiments were carried out with metastable He atoms interacting through the 23S1to 23P2 transition with an optical field at 1.083 μm. The interaction times were significantly less than the 23P natural lifetime of 100 ns, so spontaneous emission played no role during the interaction.
The key elements for atom interferometers are atomic beam splitters and recombiners. An atomic beam splitter separates a single atomic wave function into a superposition state corresponding to two center of mass wavepackets that propagate in different spatial directions and a recombiner reunites the atomic beams. We report here on the investigation of 1) an atomic beam splitter with large separation angle based on the optical Stern Gerlach effect, 2) an atomic mirror based on the reflection of atoms by different types of evanescent waves (a simple evanescent wave and a surface plasmon wave), 3) an atomic beam splitter realized by the partial spatial reflection of an atom by an evanescent wave and 4) diffraction of atoms by a standing evanescent wave.
We report on a novel atomic beamsplitter. It combines the advantages of Bragg scattering (transfer possible into a single, very high diffraction order due to adiabatic conservation of ‘transverse kinetic energy’) with the convenience of tuning the splitting angle simply by adjusting a magnetic field. It also offers the added flexibility of a three-port beamsplitter. Our configuration consists of a quasi-standing light wave with +-- polarization configuration and a transverse magnetic field. The incoming metastable (3P1) helium atoms intersect the light wave perpendicularly. Adiabatic transfer to a single diffraction order can be achieved by, e.g., starting with atoms in the M = 1, p = 0 substate (p denoting the transverse momentum) and tuning the magnetic field such that the energy of the M = 0, p = ±2n¯hk substates (with n the diffraction order and k the wavenumber of the light) is equal to the energyof the initial state. We have experimentally demonstrated quasi-Bragg scattering up to 8th order, confirmed the magnetic tunability, and compared our results with numerical simulations.
We have used a new technique to construct a clean, large-angle, coherent atomic beam splitter with an easily adjustable splitting angle. Helium atoms in the J=1 metastable state diffract from a far-detuned light field with ‘corkscrew’ polarization in the presence of a homogeneous magnetic field. Adiabatic transfer from magnetic energy to ‘transverse kinetic energy’ then allows symmetric diffraction of the incoming beam in a single, high diffraction order with a different value of M. The order is set by the value of the magnetic field. The result is a flexible, adjustable, large-angle, three-way atomic beam splitter for atom interferometry.