Qualifier

Erik Anciaux, UT-Austin

"Neutral atom focusing using a pulsed electromagnetic lens"

2:00pm, RLM 11.204

Abstract: We present the status of a method of neutral atom focusing that achieves sub-10nm resolution. This method is based on the nanoscale imaging of a beam of metastable atoms using an aberration-corrected lens. The lens creates a magnetic field gradient that increases with the distance from the center of the lens so as to focus divergent low field seeking atoms toward a single focal spot past the lens. The scheme takes advantage of the narrow velocity distribution of a pulsed supersonic beam as well as an optical pumping and cooling scheme that selects the magnetic state of the atoms and further reduces its velocity dispersion. This method can be used not only to pattern but to spectroscopically probe surfaces with spatial resolution below 10nm.