Demonstration of a nonmagnetic blazed-grating atomic beam splitter.
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.
K S
KS
Johnson
A
A
Chu
T W
TW
Lynn
K K
KK
Berggren
M S
MS
Shahriar
M
M
Prentiss