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arXiv:1402.5307 · Physical Review Letters

Absolute Absorption Cross Sections from Photon Recoil in a Matter-Wave Interferometer

Sandra Eibenberger, Xiaxi Cheng, Joseph P. Cotter, Markus Arndt

Published Jun 25, 2014• 30 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We measure the absolute absorption cross section of molecules using a matter-wave interferometer. A nanostructured density distribution is imprinted onto a dilute molecular beam through quantum interference. As the beam crosses the light field of a probe laser some molecules will absorb a single photon. These absorption events impart a momentum recoil which shifts the position of the molecule relative to the unperturbed beam. Averaging over the shifted and unshifted components within the beam leads to a reduction of the fringe visibility, enabling the absolute absorption cross section to be extracted with high accuracy. This technique is independent of the molecular density, it is minimally invasive and successfully eliminates many problems related to photon cycling, state mixing, photobleaching, photoinduced heating, fragmentation, and ionization. It can therefore be extended to a wide variety of neutral molecules, clusters, and nanoparticles.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.112.250402

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We measure the absolute absorption cross section of molecules using a matter-wave interferometer. A nanostructured density distribution is imprinted onto a dilute molecular beam through quantum interference. As the beam crosses the light field of a probe laser some molecules will absorb a single photon. These absorption events impart a momentum recoil which shifts the position of the molecule relative to the unperturbed beam. Averaging over the shifted and unshifted components within the beam leads to a reduction of the fringe visibility, enabling the absolute absorption cross section to be extracted with high accuracy. This technique is independent of the molecular density, it is minimally invasive and successfully eliminates many problems related to photon cycling, state mixing, photobleaching, photoinduced heating, fragmentation, and ionization. It can therefore be extended to a wide variety of neutral molecules, clusters, and nanoparticles.
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Abstract We present matter-wave interferometry as a tool to advance spectroscopy for a wide class of nanoparticles, clusters and molecules. The high sensitivity of de Broglie interference fringes to external perturbations enables measurements in the limit of an individual particle absorbing only a single photon on average, or even no photon at all. The method allows one to extract structural and electronic information from the loss of the interference contrast. It is minimally invasive and works even for dilute ensembles.
Matter-wave interferometry can be used to probe the foundations of physics and to enable precise measurements of particle properties and fundamental constants. It relies on beam splitters that coherently divide the wave function. In atom interferometers, such elements are often realised using lasers by exploiting the dipole interaction or through photon absorption. It is intriguing to extend these ideas to complex molecules where the energy of an absorbed photon can rapidly be redistributed across many internal degrees of freedom. Here, we provide evidence that center-of-mass coherence can be maintained even when the internal energy and entropy of the interfering particle are substantially increased by absorption of photons from a standing light wave. Each photon correlates the molecular center-of-mass wave function with its internal temperature and splits it into a superposition with opposite momenta in addition to the beam-splitting action of the optical dipole potential.
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