Young's double-slit interferometry within an atom

Michael W. Noel and C. R. Stroud, Jr.

Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 1252 (1995).

An experiment is described which is an analog of Young's double-slit interferometer using an atomic electron instead of light. Two phase-coherent laser pulses are used to excite a single electron into a state of the form of a pair of Rydberg wave packets that are initially on opposite sides of the orbit. The two wave packets propagate and spread until they completely overlap, then a third phase-coherent laser pulse probes the resulting fringe pattern. The relative phase of the two wave packets is varied so that the interference produces a single localized electron wave packet on one side of the orbit or the other.

Click here to download the .pdf version of the paper noel951.pdf (260 kB)

Previous Abstract

Publications List

Next Abstract

Web page maintained by
Hideomi Nihira ( nihira@optics.rochester.edu ).
Last modified 13 September 2006