Atom Interferometers with Scalable Enclosed Area
- Department of Physics, 366 Le Conte Hall, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720-7300 (United States)
- Physics Department, Stanford University, 382 Via Pueblo Mall, Stanford, California 94305 (United States)
Bloch oscillations (i.e., coherent acceleration of matter waves by an optical lattice) and Bragg diffraction are integrated into light-pulse atom interferometers with large momentum splitting between the interferometer arms, and hence enhanced sensitivity. Simultaneous acceleration of both arms in the same internal states suppresses systematic effects, and simultaneously running a pair of interferometers suppresses the effect of vibrations. Ramsey-Borde interferometers using four such Bloch-Bragg-Bloch beam splitters exhibit 15% contrast at 24(Planck constant/2pi)k splitting, the largest so far ((Planck constant/2pi)k is the photon momentum); single beam splitters achieve 88(Planck constant/2pi)k. The prospects for reaching 100 s of (Planck constant/2pi)k and applications such as gravitational wave sensors are discussed.
- OSTI ID:
- 21346962
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 102, Issue 24; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.240403; (c) 2009 The American Physical Society; ISSN 0031-9007
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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