Influence of conformational molecular dynamics on matter wave interferometry
- Author(s)
- Michael Gring, Stefan Gerlich, Sandra Eibenberger, Stefan Nimmrichter, Tarik Berrada, Markus Arndt, Hendrik Ulbricht, Klaus Hornberger, Marcel Müri, Marcel Mayor, Marcus Böckmann, Nikos Doltsinis
- Abstract
We investigate the influence of thermally activated internal molecular dynamics on the phase shifts of matter waves inside a molecule interferometer. While de Broglie physics generally describes only the center-of-mass motion of a quantum object, our experiment demonstrates that the translational quantum phase is sensitive to dynamic conformational state changes inside the diffracted molecules. The structural flexibility of tailor-made organic particles is sufficient to admit a mixture of strongly fluctuating dipole moments. These modify the electric susceptibility and through this the quantum interference pattern in the presence of an external electric field. Detailed molecular dynamics simulations combined with density-functional theory allow us to quantify the time-dependent structural reconfigurations and to predict the ensemble-averaged square of the dipole moment which is found to be in good agreement with the interferometric result. The experiment thus opens a different perspective on matter wave interferometry, as we demonstrate here that it is possible to collect structural information about molecules even if they are delocalized over more than 100 times their own diameter.
- Organisation(s)
- Quantum Optics, Quantum Nanophysics and Quantum Information
- External organisation(s)
- University of Southampton, Max-Planck-Institut für Physik komplexer Systeme, Universität Basel, Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB), King's College London
- Journal
- Physical Review A
- Volume
- 81
- No. of pages
- 4
- ISSN
- 1050-2947
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.81.031604
- Publication date
- 2010
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 103026 Quantum optics
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/922a0a04-423e-4512-b399-8ec80059a119