Atom reflection echoes and surface matter waves in atom meta-optics

Evanescent matter-waves produced by an atom wave packet incident onto a repulsive barrier edge can be back-refracted and reconstructed by the application of negative-index “comoving” potential pulses. One shows that those collapses and revivals of evanescent matter waves give rise to surface matter waves and should be observable via atom reflection echoes issued from the barrier interface. This property, together with the property of inducing negative refraction, makes such potentials the matter-wave counterpart of negative-index materials in light optics.