Quantum reflection of rare gas atoms and molecules from a grating

Abstract

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 atoms when reflected from a grating. Conditions for the observation of emerging beam resonances have been discussed and measured. In this paper, we provide a theoretical simulation of the quantum reflection in these cases from a grating. We confirm, as expected the universal dependence on the incident de Broglie wavelength only of the threshold angles for the observation of emerging beam resonances. However, the angular dependence of the reflection efficiencies, that is the ratio of scattered intensity into specific diffraction channels relative to the total intensity is found to be dependent on the specifics of the incident particle. The dependence of the reflection efficiency on the identity of the particle is intimately related to the fact that the incident energy dependence of quantum reflection depends on the details of the particle surface interaction.

18 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables

References in corpus (8)

• Quantum reflection of atoms from a solid surface at normal incidence
• A Kapitza-Dirac-Talbot-Lau interferometer for highly polarizable molecules
• A causal look into the quantum Talbot effect
• Casimir-Polder interaction between an atom and a dielectric grating
• Quantum threshold reflection is not a consequence of the badlands region of the potential
• Quantum reflection of helium atom beams from a microstructured grating
• Emerging beam resonances in atom diffraction from a reflection grating
• Quantum reflection and interference of matter waves from periodically doped surfaces

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