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Annual Meeting Optical Society of America

Experiments with a separated-beam atom interferometer

David E. Pritchard, Christopher R. Ekstrom, Jörg Schmiedmayer, Michael Chapman, Troy D. Hammond

Published Jan 1, 1993• 7 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Three 0.2 micron period diffraction gratings were combined to realize an atom interferometer1 in which the interfering beams are distinctly separated in both position and momentum. A 10 cm long foil 10 microns thick was positioned symmetrically between two side electrodes, so that the atom wave in the two sides of the interferometer went on opposite sides of it. The fringe amplitude was 820 cps, which allows us to determine the phase to 15 milliradians in 1 minute.2

DOI
10.1364/oam.1993.thoo.1

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Physical Review Letters•Aug 14, 1995•98 citations
Three 0.2 micron period diffraction gratings were combined to realize an atom interferometer1 in which the interfering beams are distinctly separated in both position and momentum. A 10 cm long foil 10 microns thick was positioned symmetrically between two side electrodes, so that the atom wave in the two sides of the interferometer went on opposite sides of it. The fringe amplitude was 820 cps, which allows us to determine the phase to 15 milliradians in 1 minute.2
We have constructed an atom interferometer using three 200 nm period transmission gratings. The two interfering portions of each atom’s wave pass on opposite sides of a stretched metal foil. A fringe amplitude of up to 900 cps is observed, which allows us to determine the phase to 15 milliradians in 1 minute. By applying different interactions to the two sides of the interferometer, we have determined the electric polarizability of the ground state of sodium, the coherence length of our beam, and the differential phase shifts and coherences of the different Zeeman ground states in a magnetic field. Some future prospects of separated beam experiments are discussed.
Abstract : An atom interferometer is constructed in which the atom waves are physically separated prior to being recombined. Fabricated transmission gratings are used as optical elements for the matter waves. Atom interferometers should be useful in studies of atomic properties, tests of basic quantum physics, for metrology, as rotation sensors, and perhaps ultimately as devices to make ultra- small structures using atom holograms. During the last year our atom interferometer has evolved from a rough plan to an essentially complete device. At present all the major components of the interferometer have been built, and tested at least once. The system will be given its first real try in the next year. Our interferometer consists of three 0.2 microns - period diffraction gratings equally spaced approx. 0.65 m apart in our atomic beam machine. The maximum separation of the beams will be approx. 60 microns. The first two gratings separate and redirect the atomic beam forming a standing wave interference pattern in the atomic flux at the third grating, which acts like a mask to sample this pattern. A principle technical obstacle is the mechanical vibrations of our machine which will blur the interference pattern.
We have demonstrated an interferometer for atoms. A three-grating geometry is used, in which the interfering beams are distinctly separated in both position and momentum. We used a highly collimated beam of sodium atoms with a de Broglie wavelength of 16 pm and high-quality 0.4-\ensuremath{\mu}m-period free-standing gratings which we fabricated using a novel method. The interference signal is 70 counts/s, which allows us to determine the phase to 0.1 rad in 1 min. Applications of atom interferometers are briefly discussed.
Summary form only given.Atom interferometers have opened up new areas of fundamental and applied research. As well known from photon optics, multiple-beam interferometers offer an increased sensitivity on the relative phases between interfering waves. Very recently, first atomic multiple-beam interferometers were realized. These concepts are based on an atomic beam that is spatially split into coherent partial de Broglie waves, where the number of interfering waves is determined by the internal atomic multi-level scheme. We report on time-domain atomic interferometry within a two-level system.
An experiment is described which is an analog of Young's double-slit interferometer using an atomic electron instead of light. Two phase-coherent laser pulses are used to excite a single electron into a state of the form of a pair of Rydberg wave packets that are initially on opposite sides of the orbit. The two wave packets propagate and spread until they completely overlap, then a third phase-coherent laser pulse probes the resulting fringe pattern. The relative phase of the two wave packets is varied so that the interference produces a single localized electron wave packet on one side of the orbit or the other.