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Updated: Apr 26, 2026

Measurement of Quantum Interference in a Silicon Ring Resonator Photon Source
Published on: April 4, 2017
Bright solitonic matter-wave interferometer
G D McDonald1, C C N Kuhn1, K S Hardman1
1Quantum Sensors and Atomlaser Lab, Department of Quantum Science, Australian National University, Canberra 0200, Australia.
Abstract:
We present the first realization of a solitonic atom interferometer. A Bose-Einstein condensate of 1×10(4) atoms of rubidium-85 is loaded into a horizontal optical waveguide. Through the use of a Feshbach resonance, the s-wave scattering length of the 85Rb atoms is tuned to a small negative value. This attractive atomic interaction then balances the inherent matter-wave dispersion, creating a bright solitonic matter wave. A Mach-Zehnder interferometer is constructed by driving Bragg transitions with the use of an optical lattice colinear with the waveguide. Matter-wave propagation and interferometric fringe visibility are compared across a range of s-wave scattering values including repulsive, attractive and noninteracting values. The solitonic matter wave is found to significantly increase fringe visibility even compared with a noninteracting cloud.
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