Dresden 2011 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 3: Cold Molecules 1

Q 3.4: Vortrag

Montag, 14. März 2011, 11:15–11:30, BAR Schön

Optical Manipulation of Large Molecule Beams for Molecule Interference — •Paul Venn and Hendrik Ulbricht — School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton, Highfield, SO17 1BJ, UK

A challenge of molecule interferometry is being able to create intense beams of large molecules, which are typically created through sublimation in a furnace. In order to increase the intensity of the beam reaching our Talbot-Lau interferometer a molecular lens is proposed. This lensing effect relies on creating an off-resonant Stark shift in the target molecule species through the interaction with an intense laser beam directed perpendicular to the molecular beam. This lensing effect has previously been observed for light molecules such as CS2 and I2, and the effect is scalable up to much larger masses due to the non-resonant interaction. Simulations have been carried out modelling the lensing effect for our interferometer using a femtosecond pulsed Ti:Sa laser with 50kW peak power. From this we expect to observe a 25% increase in detected signal for a thermal beam of C60 using a single laser beam acting as a cylindrical molecular lens. For more highly polarizable molecules such as H2TPP we expect to be able to observe the focal spot of the lens without the need for preliminary cooling of the molecule beam. It is hoped that this lensing effect can be used on more massive fluro-fullerene molecules to allow us to measure interference for molecules of masses of up to 10,000amu. We will report on theoretical simulations as well as on experiments on this effect.