Eur. Phys. J. D (2014) 68: 343
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2014-40698-1

Regular Article

The effects of the non-uniformity of Raman laser beams on an atom interferometer

Institute of Optics, Department of Physics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, P.R. China

^a e-mail: zhaoyingwang@zju.edu.cn
^b e-mail: qlin@zju.edu.cn

Received: 8 November 2013
Received in final form: 27 March 2014
Published online: 12 November 2014

Abstract

The effects of the non-uniformity of intensity profile of Raman laser beams on an atom interferometer are investigated both theoretically and experimentally. The analytical expression of the dependence of the atom interference signal on the beam parameters, the atom cloud velocity deviation and the atoms’ average velocity is derived. The theoretical results are verified experimentally. The results are consistent with each other. It shows that the flatness of the Raman laser beam and the temperature of the atom cloud are the key issues for an atom interferometer to get high precision.