Atom gratings produced by large-angle atom beam splitters

An asymptotic theory of atom scattering by large amplitude periodic potentials is developed in the Raman-Nath approximation. The atom grating profile resulting from the scattering is evaluated in the Fresnel zone for triangular, sinusoidal, magneto-optical, and bichromatic held potentials. Analytic asymptotic expressions are obtained for the Fourier components of the atomic wave function following scattering. It is shown that, owing to the scattering into two groups of momentum states rather than two distinct momentum components, the corresponding spatial density profiles differ significantly from pure sinusoids.