Observation of Bloch oscillations in molecular rotation
arXiv:1504.06811 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.203002
Abstract
The periodically kicked quantum rotor is known for non-classical effects such as quantum localisation in angular momentum space or quantum resonances in rotational excitation. These phenomena have been studied in diverse systems mimicking the kicked rotor, such as cold atoms in optical lattices, or coupled photonic structures. Recently, it was predicted that several solid state quantum localisation phenomena - Anderson localisation, Bloch oscillations, and Tamm-Shockley surface states - may manifest themselves in the rotational dynamics of laser-kicked molecules. Here, we report the first observation of rotational Bloch oscillations in a gas of nitrogen molecules kicked by a periodic train of femtosecond laser pulses. A controllable detuning from the quantum resonance creates an effective accelerating potential in angular momentum space, inducing Bloch-like oscillations of the rotational excitation. These oscillations are measured via the temporal modulation of the refractive index of the gas. Our results introduce room-temperature laser-kicked molecules as a new laboratory for studies of localisation phenomena in quantum transport.
5 pages, 5 figures
References in corpus (4)
Cited by in corpus (22)
- Quantum control of molecular rotation
- Realizing Su-Schrieffer-Heeger topological edge states in Rydberg-atom synthetic dimensions
- Atom-optics simulator of lattice transport phenomena
- Synthetic dimensions in ultracold molecules: quantum strings and membranes
- A comprehensive review on developments of synthetic dimensions
- Experimental observation of Anderson localization in laser-kicked molecular rotors
- Probing quantum criticality and symmetry breaking at the microscopic level
- Topological swing in Bloch oscillations
- Strings of ultracold molecules in a synthetic dimension
- Experimental demonstration of coherent control in quantum chaotic systems
- Field-free long-lived alignment of molecules in extreme rotational states
- Control of quantum localization and classical diffusion in laser-kicked molecular rotors
- Generating long sequences of high-intensity femtosecond pulses
- Synthetic gauge field in two interacting ultracold atomic gases without an optical lattice
- Acoustic Localization Phenomena in Ferroelectric Nanophononic Devices
- Rotational excitation of molecules with long sequences of intense femtosecond pulses
- Topological charges of periodically kicked molecules
- Meissner effect in Fock space
- Non-Hermitian synthetic lattices with light-matter coupling
- Angular Bloch Oscillations and their applications
- Quantum dynamics of a polar rotor acted upon by an electric rectangular pulse of variable duration
- Two-particle topological Thouless spin pump