Probing molecular photophysics in a matter-wave interferometer

Abstract

We show that matter-wave diffraction off a single standing laser wave can be used as an accurate measurement scheme for photophysical molecular parameters. These include state-dependent optical polarizabilities and photon-absorption cross sections, the relaxation rates for fluorescence, internal conversion, and intersystem crossing, as well as ionization or cleavage probabilities. We discuss how the different photophysical processes manifest as features of the interference pattern, and we determine the accuracy of molecular parameters estimated from a realistic measurement with finite particle numbers. The analysis is based on an analytic calculation in Wigner representation, which accounts for the laser-induced coherent and incoherent dynamics, for the finite longitudinal and transverse coherence in the matter-wave beam, the gravitational and Coriolis acceleration, and an imperfect standing laser wave.

18 pages, 6 figures; corresponds to published version

References in corpus (11)

• Near-field interferometry of a free-falling nanoparticle from a point-like source
• A Kapitza-Dirac-Talbot-Lau interferometer for highly polarizable molecules
• High precision measurement of the static dipole polarizability of cesium
• A universal matter-wave interferometer with optical ionization gratings in the time domain
• Polarizability measurements in a molecule near-field interferometer
• Theory and experimental verification of Kapitza-Dirac-Talbot-Lau interferometry
• Concept of an ionizing time-domain matter-wave interferometer
• Optical polarizabilities of large molecules measured in near-field interferometry
• Absolute absorption cross sections from photon recoil in a matter-wave interferometer
• Multi-photon absorption in optical gratings for matter waves
• Diffracting molecular matter-waves at deep-ultraviolet standing-light waves