Young's Double-Slit Interferometry within an Atom

Authors

Michael W. Noel, Bryn Mawr CollegeFollow
C. R. Stroud Jr.

Document Type

Article

Version

Final Published Version

Publication Title

Physical Review Letters

Volume

75

Publication Date

1995

Abstract

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.

Publisher's Statement

© 1995 by the American Physical Society. The publisher's version of the article can be found at http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.75.1252

Citation

Michael W. Noel and C. R. Stroud, Jr., "Young's double-slit interferometry within an atom," Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 1252 (1995).

DOI

http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.75.1252