Feature

Atom Interferometers

David Pritchard

Years of discussions about possible ways to make atom interometers bore fruit this year as several groups demonstrated different experimental routes to the realization of a working atom interferometer. These realizations built on advances in atom slowing and trapping, the manipulation of atoms using light forces, and the construction of nanofabricated structures for diffracting atoms. These advances culminated this year in the use of nanofabrication technology by a group in Konstanz, Germany, to realize Young's experiment for He atoms, in which atoms displayed interference fringes as a result of passing through a double slit.

Publish Date: 01 December 1991