Atom gratings produced by large angle atom beam splitters

An asymptotic theory of atom scattering by large amplitude periodic potentials is developed in the Raman-Nath approximation. The atom grating profile arising after scattering is evaluated in the Fresnel zone for triangular, sinusoidal, magneto-optical, and bichromatic field potentials. It is shown that, owing to the scattering in these potentials, two \QTR{em}{groups} of momentum states are produced rather than two distinct momentum components. The corresponding spatial density profile is calculated and found to differ significantly from a pure sinusoid.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figure

λ8\frac{\lambda}{8}-period optical potentials

A Raman configuration of counterpropagating traveling wave fields, one of which is $lin\bot lin$ polarized and the other $lin\Vert lin$ polarized, is shown to lead to optical potentials having $\frac{\lambda}{8}$ periodicity. Such optical potentials may be used to construct optical lattices having $\frac{\lambda}{8}$ periodicity. Using numerical diagonalization, we obtain the optical potentials for $^{\text{85}}$Rb atoms.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figure