Signatures of spatial inversion asymmetry of an optical lattice observed in matter-wave diffraction

Abstract

The structure of a two-dimensional honeycomb optical lattice potential with small inversion asymmetry is characterized using coherent diffraction of ${}^{87}$Rb atoms. We demonstrate that even a small potential asymmetry, with peak-to-peak amplitude of $\le 2.3\%$ of the overall lattice potential, can lead to pronounced inversion asymmetry in the momentum-space diffraction pattern. The observed asymmetry is explained quantitatively by considering both Kapitza-Dirac scattering in the Raman-Nath regime, and also either perturbative or full-numerical treatment of the band structure of a periodic potential with a weak inversion-symmetry-breaking term. Our results have relevance for both the experimental development of coherent atom optics and the proper interpretation of time-of-flight assays of atomic materials in optical lattices.

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Cited by in corpus (3)

• Multi-frequency optical lattice for dynamic lattice-geometry control
• Spatial Coherence of a Strongly Interacting Bose Gas in the Trimerized Kagome Lattice
• Generating and detecting topological phases with higher Chern number