Coherent Atom Optics with fast metastable rare gas atoms
- Laboratoire de Physique des Lasers, Universite Paris 13, Avenue J.B. Clement, 93430-Villetaneuse (France)
- Institute of Physics, Pregrevica 118, 11080 - Belgrade-Zemun (Serbia and Montenegro)
Coherent atom optics experiments making use of an ultra-narrow beam of fast metastable atoms generated by metastability exchange are reported. The transverse coherence of the beam (coherence radius of 1.7 {mu}m for He*, 1.2 {mu}m for Ne*, 0.87 {mu}m for Ar*) is demonstrated via the atomic diffraction by a non-magnetic 2{mu}m-period reflection grating. The combination of the non-scalar van der Waals (vdW) interaction with the Zeeman interaction generated by a static magnetic field gives rise to ''vdW-Zeeman'' transitions among Zeeman sub-levels. Exo-energetic transitions of this type are observed with Ne*(3P2) atoms traversing a copper micro-slit grating. They can be used as a tunable beam splitter in an inelastic Fresnel bi-prism atom interferometer.
- OSTI ID:
- 20898643
- Journal Information:
- AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 876, Issue 1; Conference: 23. summer school and international symposium on the physics of ionized gases, National Park Kopaonik (Serbia), 28 Aug - 1 Sep 2006; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.2406011; (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0094-243X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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