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Phys. Rev. A 68, 013606 (2003) [4 pages]

Atomic-matter-wave scanner

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Hilmar Oberst1 *, Shigenori Kasashima1, Victor I. Balykin2, and Fujio Shimizu1
1Institute for Laser Science, University of Electro-Communications, Chofu-shi, Tokyo 182-8585, Japan
2Institute of Spectroscopy, Russian Academy of Science, Troitsk 142092, Moscow Region, Russian Federation

Received 1 June 2002; published 16 July 2003

We report on the experimental realization of an atom optical device that allows scanning of an atomic beam with a controllable diffraction grating for atomic waves. We used a time-modulated evanescent wave field above a glass surface to diffract a continuous beam of metastable neon atoms at grazing incidence. The diffraction angles and efficiencies were controlled by the frequency and form of modulation, respectively. With an optimized shape, obtained from a numerical simulation, we were able to transfer more than 50% of the atoms into the first order beam, which we were able to move over a range of 8 mrad.


©2003 The American Physical Society

URL: http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevA.68.013606
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.68.013606
PACS: 03.75.-b, 32.80.Pj, 42.50.Vk

* Electronic address: hilmar@ils.uec.ac.jp

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