Related papers: Phasor analysis of atom diffraction from a rotated…
Highly polarizable metastable He* ($\mathrm{2^3S}$) and Ne* ($\mathrm{2^3P}$) atoms have been diffracted from a 100 nm period silicon nitride transmission grating and the van der Waals coefficients $C_3$ for the interaction of the excited…
We consider various effects that are encountered in matter wave interference experiments with massive nanoparticles. The text-book example of far-field interference at a grating is compared with diffraction into the dark field behind an…
We calculate the dispersive force between a ground state atom and a non planar surface. We present explicit results for a corrugated surface, derived from the scattering approach at first order in the corrugation amplitude. A variety of…
We present an analysis of atomic diffraction due to the interaction of an atomic beam with a pair of Gaussian light pulses. We derive a simple analytical expression for the populations in different diffraction orders. The validity of the…
In 1995, Chapman et al. (1995 Phys. Rev. Lett. 75 2783) showed experimentally that the interference contrast in a three-grating atom interferometer does not vanish under the presence of scattering events with photons, as required by the…
The information content and properties of the cross section for atom scattering from a defect on a flat surface are investigated. Using the Sudden approximation, a simple expression is obtained that relates the cross section to the…
We present experimental observations of atom-light interactions within tens of nanometers (down to 11~nm) of a sapphire surface. Using photon counting we detect the fluorescence from of order one thousand Rb or Cs atoms, confined in a vapor…
The Lifshitz theory of the van der Waals force is extended for the case of an atom (molecule) interacting with a plane surface of an uniaxial crystal or with a long solid cylinder or cylindrical shell made of isotropic material or uniaxial…
Diffraction tomography aims to recover an object's scattering potential from measured wave fields. In the classical setting, the object is illuminated by plane waves from many directions, and the Fourier diffraction theorem provides a…
Grazing incidence fast atom diffraction (GIFAD or FAD) is a sensitive tool for surface analysis, which strongly relies on the quantum coherence of the incident beam. In this article the influence of the incidence conditions and the…
We present a semiclassical perturbation method for the description of atomic diffraction by a weakly modulated potential. It proceeds in a way similar to the treatment of light diffraction by a thin phase grating, and consists in…
In a retroreflective scheme atomic Raman diffraction adopts some of the properties of Bragg diffraction due to additional couplings to off-resonant momenta. As a consequence, double Raman diffraction has to be performed in a Bragg-type…
We show that the quantum reflection coefficient of ultracold heavy atoms scattering off a dielectric surface can be tuned in a wide range by suitable choice of surface and environment temperatures. This effect results from a temperature…
Advances in micro-technology of the last years have made it possible to carry optics textbooks experiments over to atomic and molecular beams, such as diffraction by a double slit or transmission grating. The usual wave-optical approach…
Diffraction patterns produced by grazing scattering of fast atoms from insulator surfaces are used to examine the atom-surface interaction. The method is applied to He atoms colliding with a LiF(001) surface along axial crystallographic…
We study the dispersion interaction of the van der Waals and Casimir-Polder (vdW-CP) type between a neutral atom and the surface of a metal by allowing for nonlocal electrodynamics, i.e. electron diffusion. We consider two models: (i) bulk…
Using the general expressions for level shifts obtained from the master equation for a small system interacting with a large one considered as a reservoir, we calculate the dispersive potentials between an atom and a wall in the dipole…
Light transmission or diffraction from different quantum phases of cold atoms in an optical lattice has recently come up as a useful tool to probe such ultra cold atomic systems. The periodic nature of the optical lattice potential closely…
We measure the resonance line shape of atomic vapor layers with nanoscale thickness confined between two sapphire windows. The measurement is performed by scanning a probe laser through resonance and collecting the scattered light. The line…
We consider an optical diffraction grating in which the spatial distribution of open slits forms a fractal set. The Fraunhofer diffraction patterns through the fractal grating are obtained analytically for the simplest triad Cantor type and…