History
The separation of matter wave packets from complete atoms was first observed by Esterman and Stern in 1930, when a Na beam was diffracted of a surface on NaCl. The first modern atom interferometer reported was a Young double slit experiment with metastable helium atoms and a microfabricated double slit by Carnal and Mlynek in 1991, and an interferometer using three microfabricated diffraction gratings and Na atoms in the group around Pritchard at MIT. Shortly afterwards, an optical version of Ramsey spectrometer typically used in atomic clocks was recognized also as an atom interferometer at the PTB in Braunschweig, Germany. The largest physical separation between the partial wave packets of atoms was achieved using laser cooling techniques and stimulated Raman processes by S. Chu and coworkers in Stanford.
Read more about this topic: Atom Interferometer
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