We demonstrate a viable version of the near-century old idea of a Stern-Gerlach interferometer based on coherent splitting of a spin in a magnetic field gradient. Our scheme utilizes pulsed magnetic field gradients, generated by currents in an atom chip wire, and radio-frequency Rabi transitions between Zeeman sub-levels.
We transform an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate into a superposition of spatially separated propagating wavepackets and observe spatial interference fringes with a measurable phase repeatability. A continuously tuneable wide range of momentum difference between the two wavepackets is shown to be achievable by controlling only the duration and strength of the pulsed gradients. We present ways to achieve high phase stability and propose alternative splitting schemes using different geometries, fields and atomic levels, as well as interferometric schemes giving rise to internal state population signals. This versatility makes our method a good candidate for supporting a variety of future applications and fundamental studies [1].
References:
[1] Shimon Machluf, Yonathan Japha and Ron Folman, arXiv:1208.2526. |
