Molecular Frisbee: Motion of Spinning Molecules in Inhomogeneous Fields

Abstract

Several laser techniques have been suggested and demonstrated recently for preparing polarizable molecules in rapidly spinning states with a disc-like angular distribution. We consider motion of these spinning discs in inhomogeneous fields, and show that the molecular trajectories may be precisely controlled by the tilt of the plane of the laser-induced rotation. The feasibility of the scheme is illustrated by optical deflection of linear molecules twirled by two delayed cross-polarized laser pulses. These results open new ways for many applications involving molecular focusing, guiding and trapping, and may be suitable for separating molecular mixtures by optical and static fields.

References in corpus (6)

• Laser-induced alignment and orientation of quantum-state-selected large molecules
• Quantum-state selection, alignment, and orientation of large molecules using static electric and laser fields
• Controlling the sense of molecular rotation
• Deflection of field-free aligned molecules
• Controlling Molecular Scattering by Laser-Induced Field-Free Alignment
• Laser Induced Selective Alignment of Water Spin Isomers

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Manipulation of Molecules with Electromagnetic Fields
• Modifying molecule-surface scattering by ultrashort laser pulses
• Deflection of Rotating Symmetric Molecules by Inhomogeneous Fields
• Stern-Gerlach deflection of field-free aligned paramagnetic molecules