Coherent patterning of matter waves with subwavelength localization

In this work, the authors proposed a novel state selective atom localization and patterning scheme named subwavelength localization via adiabatic passage (SLAP) that consists in coupling two partially overlapping and spatially structured laser fields to three internal levels of the matter wave yielding state-selective localization at those positions where the adiabatic passage process does not occur. Compared to the coherent population trapping (CPT) based techniques, the SLAP technique presents several important advantages. The paper describes the SLAP technique to coherently achieve state-selective patterning and addressing of matter waves and analyze its potential implementation for nanolithography with an atomic beam of metastable Ne and for coherent patterning of a two-component ⁸⁷Rb BEC.