Refined model for Talbot–Lau matter-wave optics with pulsed photodepletion gratings

Dörre, Nadine; Haslinger, Philipp; Rodewald, Jonas; Geyer, Philipp; Arndt, Markus

doi:10.1364/josab.32.000114

Cited by 6 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…We find a sine fringe contrast of =  V 34.4 0.5% 0 and a vertical offset = b 10 nm, the latter being consistent with local mirror deformations [38] and without further significance as long as it remains stable. Since the optical gratings cannot be moved in space, the range of accessible symmetric pulse separation times is currently limited to the width of the detected velocity distribution.…”

Section: Isotope-selective High-order Interference In Gravitational Fsupporting

confidence: 65%

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Isotope-selective high-order interferometry with large organic molecules in free fall

et al. 2018

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Section: Isotope-selective High-order Interference In Gravitational Fsupporting

confidence: 65%

“…Even though theory [29] allows contrast values as high as 100%, the finite laser power, the non-unity mirror reflectivity and mirror corrugations on the level of ±5 nm limit the maximal contrast [38]. Vibrational dephasing [39], thermal [40] or collisional [41,42] decoherence do not constrain the visibility.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Isotope-selective high-order interferometry with large organic molecules in free fall

et al. 2018

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“…We find that β 100 would be required. This is two orders of magnitude off and appears unreasonable considering β of different organic molecules and clusters [32].…”

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confidence: 95%

“…For our molecular beam divergence and mass, this is sufficient to smear out the interference pattern. The interference contrast is then defined as the normalized signal difference S N = (S res − S off )/S off [12].To model the expected signal we use a phase space description based on the Wigner function w(x, p x ) [31] and modify it to account for tilted and divergent molecular beams (see Methods) including previous refinements modeling mirror and grating imperfections [32]. This allows comparing the experiment with both the quantum and the classical expectation in the same framework.…”

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confidence: 99%

Matter-wave interference of a native polypeptide

et al. 2020

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The de Broglie wave nature of matter is a paradigmatic example of fundamental quantum physics and enables precise measurements of forces, fundamental constants and even material properties. However, even though matter-wave interferometry is nowadays routinely realized in many laboratories, this feat has remained an outstanding challenge for the vast class of native polypeptides, the building blocks of life, which are ubiquitous in biology but fragile and difficult to handle. Here, we demonstrate the quantum wave nature of gramicidin, a natural antibiotic composed of 15 amino acids. Femtosecond laser desorption of a thin biomolecular film with intensities up to 1 TW/cm 2 transfers these molecules into a cold noble gas jet. Even though the peptide's de Broglie wavelength is as tiny as 350 fm, the molecular coherence is delocalized over more than 20 times the molecular size in our all-optical time-domain Talbot-Lau interferometer. We compare the observed interference fringes for two different interference orders with a model that includes both a rigorous treatment of the peptide's quantum wave nature as well as a quantum chemical assessment of its optical properties to distinguish our result from classical predictions. The successful realization of quantum optics with this polypeptide as a prototypical biomolecule paves the way for quantumassisted molecule metrology and in particular the optical spectroscopy of a large class of biologically relevant molecules.The wave-particle duality of massive matter has become an important aspect of modern physics. Atom interferometry [1, 2] enabled new tests from quantum physics [3] to general relativity [4,5], cosmology [6] inertial sensing [7,8] precision measurements of fundamental constants [9] and forces [10]. The de Broglie wave nature has been shown for large molecules, from fullerenes [11] and molecular clusters [12] up to even high-mass particles [13]. Such experiments probe the quantum-toclassical interface and can even be used as a unique tool to characterize neutral molecules in the gas phase [14,15] with the potential for minimally invasive high-precision spectroscopy [16].However until today, quantum optics with massive native biomolecules has remained elusive in particular due to the challenges in forming stable and intense molecular beams which can be detected with high efficiency and selectivity. Measurements on neutral biomolecules in the gas phase will, however, become valuable as they are solvent-free and allow predicting and evaluating biomolecular electronic properties independent of any coupling matrix environments [17]. Here, we present the first realization of matter-wave interferometry of gramicidin A1, a linear antibiotic polypeptide composed of 15 amino acids with a mass m = 1882 amu = 3.13 × 10 −24 kg, naturally produced by the soil bacterium Bacillus brevis. Interference experiments with this biomolecular prototype brings us a step closer towards quantum experiments with living organisms [18].A typical matter-wave experiment requires an efficient so...

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“…The optical polarizability of complex molecules at fixed wavelength (532 and 157 nm) can be extracted from the diffraction efficiency in the standing light wave in Kapitza–Dirac–Talbot–Lau [42] and OTIMA interferometry [43]. Here, we propose to measure it across a wide spectrum using OTIMA interferometry.…”

Section: Matter-wave-enhanced Polarizability Spectroscopy (Meps)mentioning

confidence: 99%

New avenues for matter-wave-enhanced spectroscopy

et al. 2016

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We present matter-wave interferometry as a tool to advance spectroscopy for a wide class of nanoparticles, clusters and molecules. The high sensitivity of de Broglie interference fringes to external perturbations enables measurements in the limit of an individual particle absorbing only a single photon on average, or even no photon at all. The method allows one to extract structural and electronic information from the loss of the interference contrast. It is minimally invasive and works even for dilute ensembles.

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Refined model for Talbot–Lau matter-wave optics with pulsed photodepletion gratings

Cited by 6 publications

References 27 publications

Isotope-selective high-order interferometry with large organic molecules in free fall

Isotope-selective high-order interferometry with large organic molecules in free fall

Matter-wave interference of a native polypeptide

New avenues for matter-wave-enhanced spectroscopy

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