Abstract

A common type of atom interferometer includes two zones of interaction with light beams that act as atomic beam splitters since the transfer of recoil momentum depends on the internal state of the atoms. This Mach-Zehnder-type arrangement works even with negligible spatial splitting, as in the Ramsey version of microwave-optical double resonance, when it represents an interferometer for matter waves of the rotating nucleus in configuration space [1]. We have applied pairs of microwave signal pulses close to the 12.6-GHz ground-state hyperfine resonance on an individual trapped and laser-cooled ¹⁷¹Yb⁺ion and irradiated the ion, between subsequent pairs, by 369-nm laser light in order to excite resonance scattering and probe the ion's hyperfine state (F = 1).

© 1998 IEEE