Focusing Atom Laser Beams

TL;DR

This paper theoretically investigates the focusing of a rubidium-85 atom laser beam using optical potentials, predicting significant improvements in resolution due to atom laser properties.

Contribution

It introduces a two-state Gross-Pitaevskii model analysis for atom laser focusing, incorporating interactions and losses, to optimize beam profile parameters.

Findings

Focusing can achieve resolution up to 8 nm.

Optical harmonic potentials effectively focus the atom laser.

Atom laser focusing significantly enhances spatial resolution.

Abstract

We theoretically study the focusing of a quasi-continuous atom laser beam of rubidium-85 ($^{85}$Rb). A two-sate model analysis based on the Gross-Pitaevskii equation is used which comprises the effects of two-body atom-atom interactions and three-body recombination losses. Utilizing optical focusing potentials such as harmonic potentials, the essential factors such as the width, peak density and atom loss rate of the focused atom laser beam profile are investigated. Our analysis predicts that using an atom laser offers a dramatic improvement in resolution of up to $8$ nm.