Johannes Fiedler (UiB) presented nanolace at the Network Meeting of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, 27- 29 April 2022, University of Rostock, Germany

Title:
The Role of Dispersion Forces for Matter-Wave Diffraction Experiments

Johannes Fiedler

Abstract:

Recent progress in matter-wave experiments led to technical applications, particularly for acceleration sensing, single-particle detectors, quantum microscopes or matter-wave lithography. Thus, they act on the nanometre length scale. Consequently, the quantised nature of the object is not neglectable. In particular, the quantum vacuum has to be taken into account. Hence, the interactions between the objects are dressed by the vacuum polarisability leading to the dispersion forces. The diffraction of matter waves is based on the wave-particle duality and has the advantage that waves with sub-nanometre wavelengths can be created and thus strongly increases the resolution compared to optical devices [1]. However, the additional interactions between the matter-wave particles and the diffraction object dramatically influence the propagation of the wave [2].

In this presentation, I will illustrate the impact of dispersion forces on the results of diffraction experiments and demonstrate possibilities for their manipulation to enhance the contrast for matter-wave lithography applications [3].

[1] Brand, C., Fiedler, J., Juffmann, T., Sclafani, M., Knobloch, C., Scheel, S., Lilach, Y., Cheshnovsky, O., Arndt, M. (2015): A Green’s function approach to modeling molecular diffraction in the limit of ultra-thin gratings. In: Ann. Phys. (Berlin) 527, 580-591.

[2] Gack, N., Reitz, C., Hemmerich, J.L., Könne, M., Bennett, B., Fiedler, J., Gleiter, H., Buhmann, S.Y., Hahn, H., Reisinger, T. (2020):

Signature of Short-Range van der Waals Forces Observed in Poisson Spot Diffraction with Indium Atoms. In: Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 050401.

[3] Fiedler, J., Holst. B. (2022): An atom passing through a hole in a dielectric membrane: impact of dispersion forces on mask-based matter-wave lithography. In: J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 55, 025401.