Erlangen 2018 – scientific programme
Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Updates | Downloads | Help
MO: Fachverband Molekülphysik
MO 12: Cold Molecules and Reactions (joint session MO/A)
MO 12.4: Talk
Tuesday, March 6, 2018, 15:00–15:15, PA 2.150
Molecular conformer-selection by matter-wave diffraction at narrow-band optical phase gratings — •Christian Brand1, Benjamin A. Stickler2, Christian Knobloch1, Armin Shayeghi1, Klaus Hornberger2, and Markus Arndt1 — 1Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna, Boltzmanngasse 5, A-1090 Vienna, Austria — 2Faculty of Physics, University of Duisburg-Essen, Lotharstraße 1, 47048 Duisburg, Germany
Molecular conformations are of utmost importance in molecular recognition processes and recent collision studies have demonstrated the strong influence of molecular conformation on bimolecular reaction rates [1]. It is therefore of great interest to develop methods that are capable of separating single structures even from a congested conformational space. Here propose a new method that can separate conformers independently of their molecular dipole moment [2]. By diffraction the matter-wave at a near-resonant ultraviolet optical grating, individual conformers of complex molecules can be spatially isolated in a selected diffraction order. We illustrate the principle and discuss how to prepare a conformer-pure molecular beam of the neurotransmitter 2-phenylethylamine. The technique thus paves the way for structure-sensitive experiments with hydrocarbons and biomolecules, such as neurotransmitters and hormones, which evaded conformer-pure isolation so far. The applications range from environmental research, biomolecular physics to astrophysics.
[1] Chang et al., Science 342 98 (2013)
[2] C. Brand et al., ArXiv 1710.01035 (2017)