Atom Wave Lithography via Adiabatic Passage in Multilevel Systems

Abstract

Atom optics [1] seeks to study phenomena associated with the wave nature of matter. In recent years, several versions of atom interferometers have been demonstrated [2–4], and a variety of precision measurements utilising atominterferometry techniques have been performed [5],[6]. In a search for an efficient robust wide-angle atomic beam-splitter, a number of schemes based on the well-known effect of coherent population transfer (aka adiabatic passage, aka STIRAP) have been implemented [7],[8], following the proposal by Marte and Zoller [3]. (For a general discussion of STIRAP see [9].) Chu and co-authors [4] demonstrated that employing experimental techniques based on STIRAP, the initial momentum splitting can be scaled up orders of magnitude.