Magneto-optical beam splitter for atoms.

We report an experimental demonstration of diffraction of He* atoms from a magneto-optical grating. The grating was produced by the interaction of three-level atoms with a light field of spatially varying polarization and a magnetic field. For a light shift matched to the Zeeman shift. a two-peaked diffraction pattern was observed. corresponding to a momentum splitting of 42hk. The effect of changing the polarizations of the light field was investigated. The diffraction from the magneto-optical grating is compared directly with the diffraction of two-level atoms from a standing light wave and it is shown that the magneto-optical interaction leads to more efficient coupling into high order momentum states.