Measurement of the van der Waals force using reflection of cold atoms from magnetic thin-film atom mirrors
Measurement of the van der Waals force using reflection of cold atoms from magnetic thin-film atom mirrors
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利用磁性薄膜原子镜反射冷原子测量范德华力
DOI：
10.1209/epl/i2005-10477-3
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发表时间：
2006
期刊：
影响因子：
1.8
通讯作者：
C. Unnikrishnan
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
A. Mohapatra;C. Unnikrishnan
我们报道了一种测量铷原子在基态和金属表面之间范德华相互作用的新方法，该方法涉及从磁性薄膜原子镜反射激光冷却原子。我们利用了这样一个事实，即原子从薄膜磁镜反射的典型距离是磁畴大小和薄膜厚度的数量级。在厚度为200 ~ 20 nm的钴薄膜磁镜中，由于原子表面相互作用与排斥相互作用之间的竞争，冷原子的反射率发生了变化，从而可以测量20 ~ 50 nm范围内的范德华力，不确定度为15%。测量值与最近的理论估计吻合得很好。
We report on a measurement of the van der Waals interaction between rubidium atoms in the ground state and a metallic surface, employing a new method involving reflection of laser-cooled atoms from magnetic thin-film atom mirrors. We made use of the fact that the typical distance from which atoms reflect from thin-film magnetic mirrors is of the order of the magnetic domain size and the thickness of the thin film. The modification of the reflectivity of cold atoms from cobalt thin-film magnetic mirrors, with thickness in the range of 200 − 20 nm, due to the competition between the attractive atom-surface interaction and the repulsive magnetic interaction enabled the measurement of the van der Waals force in the range 20–50 nm with an uncertainty of 15%. The measured value agrees well with recent theoretical estimates.