Atom Optics: From Atom Mirrors to Atom Lasers Alain Aspect Institute of Optics Paris, France Atom Optics deals with atoms like photon optics deals with light. My talk deals with three aspects of this subject. First, I will discuss experiments that allow us to characterize specular vs diffuse reflection in an atomic mirror. I will describe how we understand these phenomenon using a matter wave description. Second, I will explain how to use Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) to produce a quasi continuous atom laser that can be used for atom optics experiments. Finally, I will describe our recent achievement of the first BEC of a metastable species. Because of the large content of internal electronic energy, it is possible to achieve single atom detection.