Adiabatic-rapid-passage multiphoton Bragg atom optics

The combination of adiabatic rapid passage and multiphoton Bragg diffraction (ARPMB pulses) to efficiently transfer many photon recoils of momentum (k) to cold-atom clouds is theoretically and experimentally investigated. This method is insensitive to perturbations of the pulse intensity or detuning. In particular, the theoretically calculated velocity acceptance can be up to 80% of one recoil velocity v _r, the theoretical maximum in Bragg diffraction. We experimentally demonstrate ARPMB pulses with transfer efficiency of 99.7% per k using 10k pulses, limited by spontaneous emission losses, and Mach-Zehnder interferometers with 80% contrast.