Focusing of a neutral helium beam with a photon-sieve structure

Abstract

The manipulation of low-energy beams of neutral atoms and molecules via their de Broglie wavelength is a branch of atom optics often referred to as de Broglie matter wave optics. The application areas include fundamental quantum mechanics, atom interferometry, and the development of new microscopy instrumentation. The focusing of de Broglie matter waves with a Fresnel zone plate was used to demonstrate the first neutral helium microscopy imaging. The ultimate resolution of such a microscope is limited by the width of the outermost zone. Because a Fresnel zone plate for atoms cannot be fabricated on a substrate (the low-energy atom beams would not be able to penetrate the substrate material), this gives a fabrication determined limit for the first-order focus of around 30--50 nm. Therefore, it is important to search for alternative optical elements that enable higher resolution. Photon sieves consist of a large number of pinholes, arranged suitably relative to the Fresnel zones. The great advantages are that the width of the pinholes can be larger than the respective Fresnel zones and a free-standing pinhole is much easier to fabricate than a free-standing zone. Thus, with a photon-sieve structure applied for de Broglie matter wave manipulation, the fabrication limit for focusing is reduced to potentially around 3--5 nm. Here we present a realization of such an ``atom sieve,'' which we fabricated out of a silicon nitride (SiN) membrane, using electron-beam lithography and reactive ion etching. Our atom sieve is 178 $\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{m}$ in diameter and has 31 991 holes. The diameter of the holes varies from 1840 to 150 nm. Using a beam of neutral, ground-state helium atoms with an average wavelength of 0.055 nm, we demonstrate helium atom focusing down to a spot size of less than 4 $\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{m}$. The focus size is limited by the intrinsic velocity spread of the helium beam.