Coherence in atom-surface collisions: Spot-beam contribution to the quantum-classical transition

M. S. GRAVIELLE; J. E. MIRAGLIA; L. FRISCO

Viña del Mar

Conferencia; IX Conferencia Latinoamericana de Colisiones Inelásticas en la Materia; 2018

Comité IX Conferencia Latinoamericana de Colisiones Inelásticas en la Materia

Grazing incidence fast atom diffraction (GIFAD) is a sensitive tool for surface analysis, which strongly relies on the quantum coherence of the incident beam. In this work the influence of the incidence conditions and the projectile mass on the visibility of the GIFAD patterns is addressed. Both parameters determine the transverse coherence length of the impinging particles, which governs the general features of GIFAD distributions. We show that by varying the impact energy, while keeping the same collimating setup and normal energy, it is possible to control the numberof coherently lighted surface channels, allowing one to switch between intra-channel (supernumerary rainbow) and inter-channel(Bragg) interferences in final projectile distributions [1].