Coherent Stern–Gerlach momentum splitting on an atom chip

摘要: In the Stern-Gerlach effect, a magnetic field gradient splits particles into spatially separated paths according to their spin projection. The idea of exploiting this effect for creating coherent momentum superpositions matter-wave interferometry appeared shortly after its discovery, almost century ago, but was judged be far beyond practical reach. Here we demonstrate viable version idea. Our scheme uses pulsed gradients, generated by currents in an atom chip wire, and radio-frequency Rabi transitions between Zeeman sublevels. We transform atomic Bose-Einstein condensate superposition propagating wavepackets observe spatial interference fringes with measurable phase repeatability. method is versatile range transfer different available splitting geometries. These features make our good candidate supporting variety future applications fundamental studies.