2013/03/31 by Tarik Berrada, Sandrine van Frank, Robert Bücker +3 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.quant-gas #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/ncomms3077
published as Nature Communications 4, 2077 · 14 pages, 7 figures (including appendix); Nature Communications 4, 2077
arxiv created 2013/07/08 · arxiv updated 2014/02/07
Particle-wave duality enables the construction of interferometers for matter waves, which complement optical interferometers in precision measurement devices. This requires the development of atom-optics analogs to beam splitters, phase shifters, and recombiners. Integrating these elements into a single device has been a long-standing goal. Here we demonstrate a full Mach-Zehnder sequence with trapped Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) confined on an atom chip. Particle interactions in our BEC matter waves lead to a non-linearity, absent in photon optics. We exploit it to generate a non-classical state having reduced number fluctuations inside the interferometer. Making use of spatially separated wave packets, a controlled phase shift is applied and read out by a non-adiabatic matter-wave recombiner. We demonstrate coherence times a factor of three beyond what is expected for coherent states, highlighting the potential of entanglement as a resource for metrology. Our results pave the way for integrated quantum-enhanced matter-wave sensors.