New Prospects for de Broglie Interferometry

摘要: We consider various effects that are encountered in matter wave interference experiments with massive nanoparticles. The text-book example of far-field at a grating is compared diffraction into the dark field behind an opaque aperture, commonly designated as Poisson’s spot or Arago. Our estimates indicate both phenomena may still be observed mass range exceeding present-day by least two orders magnitude. They require, however, development sufficiently cold, intense and coherent cluster beams. While observation offers advantage non-dispersiveness simple distinction between classical quantum fringes absence particle wall interactions, van der Waals forces severely limit distinguishability genuine classically explicable spots already for moderately polarizable objects elements thin 100 nm.