Studies on coherence and decoherence in Fast Atom Diffraction

A few years ago, quantum effects were observed for the scattering of fast atoms from surfaces under a grazing angle of incidence. We discuss basic features of Fast Atom Diffraction (FAD) which adds a further powerful method to the established tools in ion beam analysis and surface science. Attractive features of FAD in studies on the structure of surfaces comprise negligible radiation damage, cost effective operation of the complete setup, no charging effects in studies with insulators, and an extreme sensitivity to the topmost layer of surface atoms. The observation of diffraction patterns is based on the quantum coherence which is preserved during the scattering process with the target surface. We will discuss basic features of the coherence phenomena and its role for the observation of quantum effects in the angular distributions for grazingly scattered atoms. In a comparison of data obtained for H and He atoms we demonstrate that two different mechanisms for decoherence are important.