Measurement of the van der Waals Force in an Atomic Mirror

A. Landragin; J.-Y. Courtois; G. Labeyrie; N. Vansteenkiste; C. I. Westbrook; A. Aspect

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.77.1464

Measurement of the van der Waals Force in an Atomic Mirror

A. Landragin, J.-Y. Courtois, G. Labeyrie, N. Vansteenkiste, C. I. Westbrook, and A. Aspect

Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 1464 – Published 19 August 1996

Abstract

We have measured the attractive van der Waals force between a dielectric wall and an atom in its ground state. The method is a direct force measurement in which we use an evanescent wave atomic mirror to balance the van der Waals force and the inertia of the incident atom.