Atomic beam is special case of
particle beam
A particle beam is a stream of charged or neutral particles. In particle accelerators, these particles can move with a velocity close to the speed of light. There is a difference between the creation and control of charged particle beams and ne ...
; it is the collimated flux (beam) of neutral atoms.
The imaging systems using the slow atomic beams can use the
Fresnel zone plate
A zone plate is a device used to Focus (optics), focus light or other things exhibiting wave character.G. W. Webb, I. V. Minin and O. V. Minin, “Variable Reference Phase in Diffractive Antennas”, ''IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine'', ...
(
Fresnel diffraction lens) of a
Fresnel diffraction mirror as focusing element. The imaging system with atomic beam could provide the sub-micrometre resolution.
Particle accelerators
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