Noninterferometric phase imaging of a neutral atomic beam

Abstract

We demonstrate quantitative phase imaging of a neutral atomic beam by using a noninterferometric technique. A collimated thermal atomic beam is phase shifted by an off-resonant traveling laser beam with both a Gaussian and a TEM01 profile and with both red and blue detuning of as much as 50 GHz. Phase variations of more than 1000 rad were recovered from velocity-selective measurements of the propagation of the atomic beam and were found to be in quantitative agreement with theoretical predictions based on independently measured phase object intensity profiles and detunings.© 2002 Optical Society of America.