An ellipsoidal mirror for focusing neutral atomic and molecular beams

Fladischer, K. et al. (2010) An ellipsoidal mirror for focusing neutral atomic and molecular beams. New Journal of Physics, 12, 033018. (doi: 10.1088/1367-2630/12/3/033018)

Abstract

Manipulation of atomic and molecular beams is essential to atom optics applications including atom lasers, atom lithography, atom interferometry and neutral atom microscopy. The manipulation of charge-neutral beams of limited polarizability, spin or excitation states remains problematic, but may be overcome by the development of novel diffractive or reflective optical elements. In this paper, we present the first experimental demonstration of atom focusing using an ellipsoidal mirror. The ellipsoidal mirror enables stigmatic off-axis focusing for the first time and we demonstrate focusing of a beam of neutral, ground-state helium atoms down to an approximately circular spot, (26.8±0.5) μm×(31.4±0.8) μm in size. The spot area is two orders of magnitude smaller than previous reflective focusing of atomic beams and is a critical milestone towards the construction of a high-intensity scanning helium microscope.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: MacLaren, Professor Donald
• Authors: Fladischer, K., Reingruber, H., Reisinger, T., Mayrhofer, V., Ernst, W.E., Ross, A.E., MacLaren, D.A., Allison, W., Litwin, D., Galas, J., Sitarek, S., Nieto, P., Barredo, D., Farias, D., Miranda, R., Surma, B., Miros, A., Piatkowski, B., Sondergard, E., and Holst, B.
• Subjects: Q Science > QC Physics
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Physics and Astronomy
• Journal Name: New Journal of Physics
• Publisher: Institute of Physics Publishing Ltd.
• ISSN: 1367-2630
• ISSN (Online): 1367-2630
• Published Online: 11 March 2010
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2010 Institute of Physics Publishing Ltd.
• First Published: First published in New Journal of Physics 12:033018
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher.