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Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 043602 (2007) [4 pages]

Strong-Field Spatial Interference in a Tailored Electromagnetic Bath

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Mihai Macovei1, Jörg Evers1, Gao-xiang Li2,1, and Christoph H. Keitel1
1Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, Saupfercheckweg 1, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany
2Department of Physics, Huazhong Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China

Received 9 June 2006; published 24 January 2007

Light scattered by a regular structure of atoms can exhibit interference signatures, similar to the classical double-slit. These first-order interferences, however, vanish for strong light intensities, restricting potential applications. Here, we show how to overcome these limitations to quantum interference in strong fields. First, we recover the first-order interference in strong fields via a tailored electromagnetic bath with a suitable frequency dependence. At strong driving, the optical properties for different spectral bands are distinct, thus extending the set of observables. We further show that for a two-photon detector as, e.g., in lithography, increasing the field intensity leads to twice the spatial resolution of the second-order interference pattern compared to the weak-field case.

© 2007 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.043602
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.043602
PACS:
42.50.Hz, 42.50.Ct, 42.50.St