Related papers: New prospects for de Broglie interferometry
Atom-surface interactions can significantly modify the intensity and phase of atom de Broglie waves diffracted by a silicon nitride grating. This affects the operation of a material grating as a coherent beam splitter. The phase shift…
The Talbot effect, in which a wave imprinted with transverse periodicity reconstructs itself at regular intervals, is a diffraction phenomenon that occurs in many physical systems. Here we present the first observation of the Talbot effect…
Four atom optics experiments that each serve to measure atom-surface interactions near nanofabricated gratings are presented here. In these experiments atoms in a beam travel within 25 nm of a material grating bar, and the analysis…
We study the interference of C70 fullerenes in a Talbot-Lau interferometer with a large separation between the diffraction gratings. This permits the observation of recurrences of the interference contrast both as a function of the de…
Quantum reflection is a universal property of atoms and molecules when scattered from surfaces in ultracold collisions. Recent experimental work has documented the quantum reflection and diffraction of He atoms, dimers, trimers and Neon…
We review the physics and phenomenology of wave dark matter: a bosonic dark matter candidate lighter than about 30 eV. Such particles have a de Broglie wavelength exceeding the average inter-particle separation in a galaxy like the Milky…
Extending the range of quantum interferometry to a wider class of composite nanoparticles requires new tools to diffract matter waves. Recently, pulsed photoionization light gratings have demonstrated their suitability for high mass…
In present work we study informational measures for the problem of interference of quantum particles. We demonstrate that diffraction picture in the far field, which is given by probability density of particle momentum distribution,…
The strength of an atom-surface interaction is determined by studying atom diffraction from a rotated material grating. A phasor diagram is developed to interpret why diffraction orders are never completely suppressed when a complex…
The diffraction of electromagnetic waves at the surface periodic structures accompanied by strong anomalous effects in different diffraction orders is considered in great detail for high-contrast interfaces. We restrict our discussion to…
Optical diffraction limit has been a long-term scientific issue since Ernst Abbe first introduced the concept in 1873. It is a constraint on the smallest light spot that can be achieved. Substantial effort has been invested in the past…
We show that a new interference effect appears in the intensity fluctuations of photons multiply scattered by an atomic gas of large optical depth b. This interference occurs only for scattering atoms that are Zeeman degenerate and it leads…
This chapter reviews recent experiments on matter wave interferometry with large molecules. Starting from an elementary introduction to matter wave physics we discuss far-field diffraction and near-field interferometry with thermally…
The Compton effect is commonly cited as a demonstration of the particle feature of light, while the wave nature of matter has been proposed by de Broglie and demonstrated by Davisson and Germer with the Bragg diffraction of electron beams.…
We review different attempts to show the decoherence process in double-slit-like experiments both for charged particles (electrons) and neutral particles with permanent dipole moments. Interference is studied when electrons or atomic…
Even 100 years after its introduction by Louis de Broglie, the wave-nature of matter is often regarded as a mind-boggling phenomenon. To give an intuitive introduction to this field, we here discuss the diffraction of massive molecules…
In atom optics a material structure is commonly regarded as an amplitude mask for atom waves. However, atomic diffraction patterns formed using material gratings indicate that material structures also operate as phase masks. In this study a…
We discuss matter wave experiments in a near-field interferometer and focus on dephasing phenomena due to inertial forces. Their presence may result in a significant reduction of the observed interference contrast, even though they do not…
We present a theoretical framework to describe the effects of decoherence on matter waves in Talbot-Lau interferometry. Using a Wigner description of the stationary beam the loss of interference contrast can be calculated in closed form.…
The standard quantum theory has not taken into account the size of quantum particles, the latter being implicitly treated as material points. The recent interference experiments of Zeilinger [3] with large molecules like fullerenes and the…