The focusing of a neutral atomic beam using near-resonant laser light is considered. The results of a path integral solution to the Schrodinger in the stationary phase approximation are presented. The details of the derivation of the propagation kernel are presented elsewhere [1]. This approach is general and allows us to deal with "thick" laser lenses. Numerical results for the focusing of a Gaussian atomic beam are presented. These results show that spot diameters on the order of 20 Angstroms are obtainable for many reasonable choices of laser and atomic beam parameters, and that for most of these cases the thin lens approximation is not valid.

Date Published: 1 November 1990
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 1338, Optoelectronic Devices and Applications, (1 November 1990); doi: 10.1117/12.22988

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 1338:
Optoelectronic Devices and Applications
Sriram Sriram, Editor(s)