Measurement of atomic diffraction phases induced by material gratings

Abstract

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 induced by diffraction is measured by comparing the relative phases of serveral interfering paths in a Mach-Zehnder Na atom interferometer formed by three material gratings. The values of the diffraction phases are consistent with a simple model which includes a van der Waals atom-surface interaction between the Na atoms and the silicon nitride grating bars.

4 pages, 5 figures, submitted to PRL

References in corpus (2)

• Observation of atom wave phase shifts induced by van der Waals atom-surface interactions
• Phasor analysis of atom diffraction from a rotated material grating

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Atom Interferometers
• Absolute and ratio measurements of the polarizability of Na, K, and Rb with an atom interferometer
• High-resolution atom interferometers with suppressed diffraction phases
• Concept of an ionizing time-domain matter-wave interferometer
• Advances in precision contrast interferometry with Yb Bose-Einstein condensates
• Dynamical local and non-local Casimir atomic phases