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Laser Physics

UV-VIS absorption spectroscopy of large molecules for applications in matter wave interferometry

N. Gotsche, Hendrik Ulbricht, Markus Arndt

Published Apr 1, 2007• 10 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We study the optical properties of various large molecules with respect to their suitability for new matter wave interference and detection schemes. Optical phase gratings for molecules will only be compatible with a sufficiently small absorption cross section visible while optical detection schemes may exploit strong UV resonances. We compare UV-VIS spectra of various biomolecules, such as amino acids, polypeptides, and proteins, with those of new perfluoroalkylated molecules and carbon nanotubes, and we discuss their suitability for coherent matter wave experiments.

DOI
10.1134/s1054660x07040433

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We study the optical properties of various large molecules with respect to their suitability for new matter wave interference and detection schemes. Optical phase gratings for molecules will only be compatible with a sufficiently small absorption cross section visible while optical detection schemes may exploit strong UV resonances. We compare UV-VIS spectra of various biomolecules, such as amino acids, polypeptides, and proteins, with those of new perfluoroalkylated molecules and carbon nanotubes, and we discuss their suitability for coherent matter wave experiments.
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Modern quantum optics encompasses a wide field of phenomena that are either related to the discrete quantum nature of light, the quantum wave nature of matter or light-matter interactions.We here discuss new perspectives for quantum optics with biological nanoparticles.We focus in particular on the prospects of matter-wave interferometry with amino acids, nucleotides, polypeptides or DNA strands.We motivate the challenge of preparing these objects in a 'biomimetic' environment and argue that hydrated molecular beam sources are promising tools for quantum-assisted metrology.The method exploits the high sensitivity of matter-wave interference fringes to dephasing and shifts in the presence of external perturbations to access and determine molecular properties.
We describe the state of the art in preparing, manipulating and detecting coherent molecular matter. We focus on experimental methods for handling the quantum motion of compound systems from diatomic molecules to clusters or biomolecules.Molecular quantum optics offers many challenges and innovative prospects: already the combination of two atoms into one molecule takes several well-established methods from atomic physics, such as for instance laser cooling, to their limits. The enormous internal complexity that arises when hundreds or thousands of atoms are bound in a single organic molecule, cluster or nanocrystal provides a richness that can only be tackled by combining methods from atomic physics, chemistry, cluster physics, nanotechnology and the life sciences.We review various molecular beam sources and their suitability for matter-wave experiments. We discuss numerous molecular detection schemes and give an overview over diffraction and interference experiments that have already been performed with molecules or clusters.Applications of de Broglie studies with composite systems range from fundamental tests of physics up to quantum-enhanced metrology in physical chemistry, biophysics and the surface sciences.Nanoparticle quantum optics is a growing field, which will intrigue researchers still for many years to come. This review can, therefore, only be a snapshot of a very dynamical process.
The thesis aimed to identify chemical modifications for biomolecules such as peptides and proteins to make these amenable for matter‐wave interference experiments. Crucial for matter‐wave interference experiments are charge neutral biomolecular beams, which had previously only been successfully formed for small peptides in a limited number of studies. Accordingly, a main focus of the thesis was set on the formation of such beams in close collaboration with M. Arndt's group in Vienna. A second difficulty arises from the fact that neutral molecules are not detectable with common mass spectrometer detectors, i.e. electron multipliers. Consequently the ionization of neutral protein beams in high vacuum was a second central point of the presented studies. Various methods and approaches were investigated whereby the contribution of the author was concentrated on the design, synthesis and expression of the constructs for interrogation in matterwave experiments.
The chapter discusses advances in matter-wave optics with complex molecules, generalizing Young’s double slit to high masses. The quantum wave-particle duality is visualized by monitoring the arrival patterns of molecules diffracted at nanomechanical masks. Each molecule displays particle behavior when it is localized on the detector; however, the overall interference pattern requires their delocalization in free flight. Internal particle properties influence the de Broglie waves in the presence of surfaces or fields—even in interaction with atomically thin gratings. To probe the quantum nature of high-mass molecules, universal beam splitters are combined in a multi-grating interferometer to observe high-contrast matter-wave fringes even for 500 K hot molecules, containing 810 atoms with a mass of 10 000 amu. The high sensitivity of the nanoscale interference fringes to deflection in external fields enables non-invasive measurements of molecular properties. The chapter concludes by discussing research on beam techniques that extend molecular quantum optics to large biomolecules.