2004/08/07 by Saijun Wu, Yingju Wang, Quentin Diot +1
Physics and Astronomy · #physics.atom-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreva.71.043602
22 pages, 4 figures, 1 table
arxiv created 2004/08/07 · arxiv updated 2013/05/29
In a recent experiment [1], it was observed that a sequence of two standing wave square pulses can split a BEC at rest into +/- 2 hbar k diffraction orders with almost 100% efficiency. By truncating the Raman-Nath equations to a 2-state model, we provide an intuitive picture that explains this double square pulse beamsplitter scheme. We further show it is possible to optimize a standingwave multi square pulse sequence to efficiently diffract an atom at rest to symmetric superposition of +/- 2n hbar k diffraction order with n>1. The approach is considered to be qualitatively different from the traditional light pulse schemes in the Bragg or the Raman-Nath region, and can be extended to more complex atomic optical elements that produce various tailored output momentum states from a cold atom source.