We construct a Mach-Zehnder interferometer using Bose-Einstein condensed rubidium atoms and optical Bragg diffraction. In contrast to interferometers based on normal diffraction, where only a small percentage of the atoms contribute to the signal, our Bragg diffraction interferometer uses all the condensate atoms. The condensate coherence properties and high phase-space density result in an interference pattern of nearly 100% contrast. In principle, the enclosed area of the interferometer may be arbitrarily large, making it an ideal tool that could be used in the detection of vortices, or possibly even gravitational waves.
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/9908160,
title = {Mach-Zehnder Bragg interferometer for a Bose-Einstein Condensate},
author = {Yoshio Torii and Yoichi Suzuki and Mikio Kozuma and Takahiro Kuga and Lu Deng and E. W. Hagley},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/9908160},
year = {2009}
}