Atom-optics hologram in the time domain

The temporal evolution of an atomic wave packet interacting with object and reference electromagnetic waves is investigated beyond the weak perturbation of the initial state. It is shown that the diffraction of an ultracold atomic beam by the inhomogeneous laser field can be interpreted as if the beam passes through a three-dimensional hologram, whose thickness is proportional to the interaction time. It is found that the diffraction efficiency of such a hologram may reach 100% and is determined by the duration of laser pulses. On this basis a method for reconstruction of the object image with matter waves is offered.