Molecular optics

Muhammad Arif Bin Jalil, Muhammad Sufi Roslan, Azam Mohamad +5 more

A novel design of molecular buffer for molecule storage and delivery using a PANDA ring resonator is proposed. The optical vortices can be generated and controlled to form the trapping tools in the same way as the optical tweezers. In theory, the trapping force is formed by the combination between the gradient field and scattering photons, which is reviewed. By using the intense optical vortices generated within the PANDA ring resonator, the required molecules can be trapped and moved (transported) dynamically within the wavelength router or network, in which the molecular buffer can be performed within the wavelength router before reaching the required destination. The advantage of the proposed system is that a transmitter and receiver can be formed within the same system, which is available for molecule storage and transportation. Relevant patents are also reviewed in this manuscript. Keywords: Molecular buffer, molecular memory, molecular transceiver, molecular repeater, Optical Router, PANDA Ring Resonator, optical tweezers, tweezer amplification, trapping forces, light polarization state

Tim Reid

Michelle Alber, Cristalei Polk, Dimitrius Denize

Li Xiao-Yun, Sun Bo-Wen, Xu Zheng-Qian +3 more

According to the optical Stark deceleration theory of using a stationary quasi-cw red-detuned optical lattice to slow and trap an arbitrary pulsed molecular beam, we propose a novel idea of using a modulated optical lattice instead of a stationary one to realize a multistage optical Stark deceleration. We analyze the motion of the decelerated molecules inside the optical decelerator, and study the dependence of the velocity of the decelerated molecular packet on the synchronous phase angle and the number of the deceleration stages (i.e. half the number of the optical-lattice cells) by using the Monte-Carlo method. The simulation results show that it takes longer time for the molecules to reach the detector as the number of the deceleration stages increases. The decelerated molecular wave packets are gradually separated from the large wave packets of the original molecular velocity distribution. And the higher the number of the deceleration stages, the lower the decelerated molecular speed is. In addition, we also study the influence of the initial phase angle of synchronous molecules under the same conditions. It is demonstrated that the higher the initial phase angle of synchronous molecules, the lower the decelerated molecular speed is and the smaller the number of molecules in the deceleration wave packet, so the phase space is compressed. The result also shows that the modulated optical Stark decelerator does not have the process of molecular free flight, and thus improving the efficiency of deceleration for molecules. The ultra-cold molecules can be trapped in the optical lattice by rapidly turning off the modulation signal of the lattice. Comparing with the previous scheme, the doubled number of the deceleration stages is reached in the same optical lattice length since a modulated optical lattice is used. For a length of optical lattice of 3.71 mm, theoretical simulation results demonstrate that the speed of methane molecules is decelerated from 280 m/s to 172 m/s. Comparing with the previous results from 280 m/s to 232 m/s, the deceleration effect is improved by 26%. Our scheme can not only obtain an ultra-colder molecular packet under the same molecular-beam parameters and deceleration conditions, but also be directly used to trap the slowed cold molecules after the deceleration without needing to use other techniques for molecular trapping.

Maxim V. Ivanov, Thomas‐C. Jagau, Guo‐Zhu Zhu +2 more

Optical cycling, a continuous photon scattering off atoms or molecules, plays a central role in the quantum information science. While optical cycling has been experimentally achieved for many neutral species, few molecular ions have been investigated. We present a systematic theoretical search for diatomic molecular ions suitable for optical cycling using equation-of-motion coupled-cluster methods. Inspired by the electronic structure patterns of laser-cooled neutral molecules, we establish the design principles for molecular ions and explore various possible cationic molecular frameworks. The results show that finding a perfect molecular ion for optical cycling is challenging, yet possible. Among various possible diatomic molecules we suggest several candidates, which require further attention from both theory and experiment: YF+, SiO+, PN+, SiBr+, and BO+.

Sebastiaan Y. T. van de Meerakker, Hendrick L. Bethlem, Gerard Meijer