Evanescent wave mirror for cold atoms—A quasi-resonant case

Abstract The measurements of the inelastic photon scattering in the optical dipole mirror created by a quasi-resonant evanescent wave are presented. The momentum transfer between an evanescent wave and cold atoms accompanying the atom reflection are discussed for a single and double evanescent wave configurations. The latter configuration allows 10-fold reduction of the systematic errors in the measurements. A simple theoretical description is provided to account for any saturation parameter in the interaction of an atom and evanescent field. A large number of photons scattered from a quasi-resonant evanescent wave makes this method a promising tool for investigations of surface related phenomena.