Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 5044–5047 (1998)Atomic Interference in Grazing Incidence Diffraction from an Evanescent Wave MirrorReceived 11 May 1998; published in the issue dated 7 December 1998 We report an experiment showing that atomic diffraction at grazing incidence from an evanescent wave mirror results from polarization gradients in the evanescent wave which induce transitions among atomic internal states. The resulting grating can produce large angle coherent beam splittings. We also demonstrate atomic interference in the form of a Stückelberg oscillation in the diffraction efficiency which is very sensitive to the atom wall van der Waals potential. © 1998 The American Physical Society URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.81.5044
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.81.5044
PACS:
03.75.Be, 03.75.Dg, 32.80.Lg
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