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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

design, implementation, laser locking apparatus, ion interferometer

College

Physical and Mathematical Sciences

Department

Physics and Astronomy

Abstract

The experiment which we are building here in Dr. Durfee’s lab is a novel one, the key part of which is an ion interferometer. The interferometer consists of a beam of Sr+ ions which will be split in half. The two halves of the beam will travel along different paths, and then be recombined. Depending on the difference of phase of the two beams on recombining they may either constructively or destructively interfere with each other. Since the phase change of each beam depends on the potential energy along the path that beam follows, this will allow us to very finely measure the difference in potential energy along two paths. In other words, the interferometer takes advantage of the wave nature of matter to allow us to perform very precise measurements of an electric field.

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