New prospects for de Broglie interferometry

Autor(en)

Thomas Juffmann, Stefan Nimmrichter, Markus Arndt, Herbert Gleiter, Klaus Hornberger

Abstrakt

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

Organisation(en)

Quantenoptik, Quantennanophysik und Quanteninformation

Externe Organisation(en)

Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, Max-Planck-Institut für Physik komplexer Systeme

Journal

Foundations of Physics

Band

42

Seiten

98-110

Anzahl der Seiten

13

ISSN

0015-9018

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10701-010-9520-5

Publikationsdatum

2012

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

103026 Quantenoptik

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/59cb160d-623d-493e-ba8c-cb5cbcaa4968