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European Quantum Electronics Conference (EQEC)

Normal incidence reflection of Na atoms on an enhanced evanescent wave mirror

Maarten D. Hoogerland, L. Monz, Kristian Helmerson, William D. Phillips, Robin Kaiser, Christoph Ira Westbrook

Published Aug 24, 2005• 1 citation
Publisher
DOI
10.1109/eqec.1994.698052

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We explore the design of atom-optic components, such as mirrors, to manipulate ultracold atoms. We show that it is possible to enhance significantly quantum effects by engineering sharp features in the interaction potential between atoms and the component. We illustrate the concept by calculating the reflection probability for ultracold sodium atoms incident on a bichromatic evanescent-wave atomic mirror created by lasers red and blue detuned from resonance with intensities and detunings chosen to enhance quantum reflection of a purely attractive potential. With realistic parameters for sodium atoms incident on glass at 10 cm/s, up to 30% reflection can be obtained.
We tested the specularity of the ref lection of slow atoms from an evanescent-wave mirror at normal incidence. In two of the three prisms that we tested the atoms were ref lected diffusely. This nonspecular ref lection appears to be correlated with the rms roughness of the surface supporting the evanescent wave. Only the highest quality surface (rms roughness of the order of 0.1 nm) leads to specular ref lection. This discovery imposes stringent limits on the use of these mirrors in atomic-optics experiments.