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European Quantum Electronics Conference (EQEC)

Fluorescence methods for matter interferometry with nanosized objects

Alexander Stibor, André Stefanov, Fabienne Goldfarb, Sarayut Deachapunya, Anton Zeilinger, Markus Arndt

Published Jan 1, 2005• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Three different fluorescence detection methods for matter interferometry are explored in the paper. Firstly, molecules can be detected in free flight, when the dilute particle beam is excited by intense laser light. The emitted fluorescent light is collected by a sensitive CCD camera. Secondly, for molecules up to about 1000 amu the molecular interference pattern, with a fringe period of about 1/spl mu/m, can be directly adsorbed on a surface and read out using high-resolution fluorescence microscopy. A third and novel detection scheme combines the high spatial resolution of Talbot Lau interferometry with the high detection efficiency of surface adsorbed fluorophores.

DOI
10.1109/eqec.2005.1567437

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Three different fluorescence detection methods for matter interferometry are explored in the paper. Firstly, molecules can be detected in free flight, when the dilute particle beam is excited by intense laser light. The emitted fluorescent light is collected by a sensitive CCD camera. Secondly, for molecules up to about 1000 amu the molecular interference pattern, with a fringe period of about 1/spl mu/m, can be directly adsorbed on a surface and read out using high-resolution fluorescence microscopy. A third and novel detection scheme combines the high spatial resolution of Talbot Lau interferometry with the high detection efficiency of surface adsorbed fluorophores.
Imaging of surface adsorbed molecules is investigated as a novel detection method for matter wave interferometry with fluorescent particles. Mechanically magnified fluorescence imaging turns out to be an excellent tool for recording quantum interference patterns. It has a good sensitivity and yields patterns of high visibility. The spatial resolution of this technique is only determined by the Talbot gratings and can exceed the optical resolution limit by an order of magnitude. A unique advantage of this approach is its scalability: for certain classes of nano-sized objects, the detection sensitivity will even increase significantly with increasing size of the particle.
Matter-wave interferometry with large molecules is partially limited by the inefficiency of the commonly used ionization detection schemes. Here we discuss the possibility of employing a surface imaging method in which molecular interferograms with periods in the micron range are adsorbed on a surface and subsequently read using fluorescence microscopy. Our preliminary experiments show that the detection efficiency can be significantly increased compared to electron impact ionization and quadrupole mass spectrometry. However the interpretation of fluorescent molecular patterns requires a good understanding and control of the molecular mobility, the bleaching behavior, and the coverage dependence of the fluorescence intensity.
Imaging of surface adsorbed molecules is investigated as a novel detection method for matter wave interferometry with fluorescent particles. Mechanically magnified fluorescence imaging turns out to be an excellent tool for recording quantum interference patterns. It has a good sensitivity and yields patterns of high visibility. The spatial resolution of this technique is only determined by the Talbot gratings and can exceed the optical resolution limit by an order of magnitude. A unique advantage of this approach is its scalability: for certain classes of nano-sized objects, the detection sensitivity will even increase significantly with increasing size of the particle.
We demonstrate a near-field Talbot-Lau interferometer for C70 fullerene molecules. Such interferometers are particularly suitable for larger masses. Using three free-standing gold gratings of 1 microm period and a transversally incoherent but velocity-selected molecular beam, we achieve an interference fringe visibility of 40% with high count rate. Both the high visibility and its velocity dependence are in good agreement with a quantum simulation that takes into account the van der Waals interaction of the molecules with the gratings and are in striking contrast to a classical moiré model.
Although interferometry's earliest and most familiar use is with photons, the discovery of matter-wave (deBroglie-wave) interference for electrons demanded the development of quantum mechanics. Since then, matter-wave interferometry has been performed with neutrons, Cooper electron-pairs, and most recently, with whole atoms and diatomic molecules. This talk describes our recent high-flux atom interferometry experiments using the generalized Talbot-vonLau effect. Our interferometer consists of a sequence of three planar vacuum-slit diffraction gratings, microfabricated from silicon nitride membranes. DeBroglie-wave interference fringes are sensed by measuring the transmission of potassium atoms on a hot- wire as a function of grating relative position. Different spatial Fourier components (up to sixth) in the diffraction pattern are resonant in the interferometer at different atomic velocities (i.e., at different wavelengths). When a laser cooled slow atomic beam is incident, various different diffraction patterns are observed as a function of atomic velocity. In an alternative `Heisenberg Microscope' configuration an incident thermal beam produces a velocity average over different fringe Fourier components. AC modulated weak laser light passing through the interferometer interacts selectively with atoms at a specific velocity. The associated fringe pattern is then ac modulated and revealed by its selective destruction.