Abstract

Interaction of waves with periodic media provides a plethora of beautiful coherent wave phenomena, which are particularly striking for deBroglie waves of massive particles. Atoms interacting with standing light waves are a model system to study these phenomena. Using diffractive optics and holography, one can, in principle, build any desirable structure in the laboratory. In addition, one can change the interaction between the object and the atom, so that one may consider (a) very weak, elastic interactions such as those in dynamical diffraction, (b) very strong interactions as in channeling, and (c) those interactions that are dominated by dissipative processes using on-resonant light.

© 1998 Optical Society of America