Stuttgart 2012 – scientific programme
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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 68: Materiewellenoptik
Q 68.8: Talk
Friday, March 16, 2012, 15:45–16:00, V53.01
An ionizing time-domain matter-wave interferometer — •Nadine Dörre1, Philipp Haslinger1, Philipp Geyer1, Jonas Rodewald1, Stefan Nimmrichter1, Klaus Hornberger2, and Markus Arndt1 — 1University of Vienna, Vienna Center of Quantum Science and Technology, Vienna , Austria — 2University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany
We present the concept and a recent setup of an all-optical matter-wave interferometer for clusters and complex molecules that combines absorptive ionization gratings with the advantages of interferometry in the time domain. In this setup, we use a sequence of three equally timed UV lasers pulses reflected from a single mirror to form standing wave gratings that diffract the particles in the time domain. These gratings can act as absorptive masks for matter waves, as soon as the absorption of a single photon leads to ionization of each particle in the vicinity of anti-nodes of the standing wave. In contrast to material grating setups, this experiment operates in a pulsed mode, which reduces the influence of the longitudinal particle motion. This turns the interferometer into a universal tool which, on the one hand, will allow us to explore the quantum wave nature of very massive particles. In combination with deflectometry and spectroscopy, on the other hand, it offers the possibility to determine properties of organic and metal clusters with high precision, among them polarizabilities, electric and magnetic moments, absorption and ionization cross sections.