Manipulating atoms and molecules with evanescent-wave mirrors

We explore how atoms and polar molecules can be manipulated using evanescent-wave mirrors (EWM). We review the simpler case of ultracold atoms incident on EWM, and show that quantum effects such as tunneling, above barrier reflection, and Casimir retardation corrections, can be probed. We show that it is possible to enhance significantly quantum effects by engineering sharp features in the effective atom-EWM potential. We illustrate the concept with a bichromatic EWM created by using red and blue detuned lasers. Finally, we extend the treatment to ultracold diatomic polar molecules. Quantum reflection and molecular state selection are demonstrated under attainable physical conditions. By facilitating the manipulation and trapping of ultracold molecules, such molecular mirrors could have several applications, e.g., as devices to filter and select state for ultracold chemistry, or to manipulate states for quantum information processing.