Photofragmentation beam splitters for matter-wave interferometry

Author(s)
Nadine Dörre, Jonas Rodewald, Philipp Geyer, Bernd von Issendorff, Philipp Haslinger, Markus Arndt
Abstract

Extending the range of quantum interferometry to a wider class of composite nanoparticles requires new tools to diffract matter waves. Recently, pulsed photoionization light gratings have demonstrated their suitability for high mass matter-wave physics. Here, we extend quantum interference experiments to a new class of particles by introducing photofragmentation beam splitters into time-domain matter-wave interferometry. We present data that demonstrate this coherent beam splitting mechanism with clusters of hexafluorobenzene and we show single-photon depletion gratings based both on fragmentation and ionization for clusters of vanillin. We propose that photofragmentation gratings can act on a large set of van der Waals clusters and biomolecules which are thermally unstable and often resilient to single-photon ionization.

Organisation(s)
Quantum Optics, Quantum Nanophysics and Quantum Information
External organisation(s)
Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
Journal
Physical Review Letters
Volume
113
No. of pages
5
ISSN
0031-9007
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.233001
Publication date
12-2014
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
103026 Quantum optics
ASJC Scopus subject areas
General Physics and Astronomy
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/e8c7be80-32a0-4524-8842-0cb50afb585b