Abstract
The specular reflectivity of slow, metastable neon atoms from a silicon surface was found to increase markedly when the flat surface was replaced by a grating structure with parallel narrow ridges. For a surface with ridges that have a sufficiently narrow top, the reflectivity was found to increase more than two orders of magnitude at the incident angle θ of 10 mRad from the surface. The slope of the reflectivity vs θ near zero was found to be nearly an order of magnitude smaller than that of a flat surface. A grating with 6.5% efficiency for the first-order diffraction was fabricated by using the ridged surface structure.
