Moving an Atom towards Right or Left Side by Applying Quantum Mechanical Matter Wave Near a Surface

Abstract

The area of trapping the atoms or molecules using light has advanced tremendously in the last few decades. In contrast, the idea of controlling (not only trapping) the movement of atomic-sized particles using quantum mechanical matter waves is a completely new emerging area of particle manipulation. Though a single previous report has suggested the pulling of atoms based on matter wave tractor beams, an attempt is yet to be made to produce a lateral force (moving the atoms towards left or right) using this technique. This article demonstrates a matter wave-based manipulation scenario that gives rise to reversible lateral force on an atom due to the interaction energy of the quantum mechanical matter wave in the presence of a metal surface creating an asymmetrical set-up. For a symmetric set-up, no lateral force has been observed. We have performed several full wave simulations and analytical calculations on a particular set-up of Xenon scatterer atoms placed near a Copper surface, with two plane matter waves of Helium impinging in the direction parallel to the surface from two sides of the scatterer. By solving the time-independent Schrodinger equation and using the solution, quantum mechanical stress tensor formalism has been applied to compute the force acting on the particle. The full wave simulation results have been found in excellent agreement with the analytical calculations. The results for the adsorbed scatterer case suggests that our proposed technique can be an efficient cleaning procedure similar to electron-stimulated desorption for futuristic applications.