Abstract

Recent progress in preparing ensembles of cold atoms holds great promise for the realization of cavities for atomic de Broglie waves. Those atomic cavities should provide discrete levels, long storage times, and the possibility of achieving a high degeneracy of atoms in a certain mode. The first proposal for such a cavity was analogous to optical cavities with their physical mirrors replaced by light-induced mirrors.¹ For laser-cooled atoms, placing a single curved atomic mirror in the earth’s gravitational field has also been proposed.² First experiments with atoms bouncing on such a device have been performed.^3,4 One key problem of these configurations is the limitation of the confinement time by the transverse motion of the atoms out of the reflecting spot.

© 1995 Optical Society of America