Browsing by Author "Spälter, Stefan"

Filter results by typing the first few letters
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Loss of spatial coherence by a single spontaneous emission
    (1994) Pfau, Tilman; Spälter, Stefan; Kurtsiefer, Christian; Ekstrom, Christopher R.; Mlynek, Jürgen
    We have demonstrated the loss of transverse spatial coherence of an atomic wave function after a single spontaneous emission. He* atoms were both diffracted and excited by a standing light wave with a variable period. After the interaction, the excited atoms decay by a single spontaneously emitted photon. By changing the period of the standing light wave, we have mapped the loss of spatial coherence as a function of the transverse coordinate. By detecting the emitted photon one could "erase" the position information available and recover the transverse coherence in a correlation experiment, or realize a Heisenberg microscope.