Designing experiments for the study of atom diffraction from nanostructured optical potentials

¹ Laboratoire de Collisions, Agrégats et Réactivité (UMR 5589 du CNRS et de l'Université Paul Sabatier), Institut de Recherche sur les Systèmes Atomiques et Moléculaires Complexes, Université Paul Sabatier, 31062 Toulouse Cedex 4, France
² Centre d'Élaboration de Matériaux et d'Études Structurales, 29 rue Jeanne Marvig, BP 4347, 31055 Toulouse Cedex 4, France

Corresponding author: jweiner@irsamc.ups-tlse.fr

Received: 11 December 2001
Revised: 4 July 2002
Accepted: 26 July 2002
Published online: 15 November 2002

Abstract

In this article we illustrate important characteristics of the diffraction of cold atoms from periodic light potentials generated from coupling a light wave to dielectric nanostructures. We apply a recently developed theoretical approach to investigate the behavior of Cs atoms dropped onto a periodically modulated optical dipole potential where the period of the modulation is controlled by the periodicity of the dielectric array. These nanostructures take the form of one-dimensional line gratings or two-dimensional point gratings. We discuss several important parameters critical to the successful realisation of laboratory experiments and future atom-optical instrumentation using this new kind of atomic diffraction medium.