Photofragmentation beam splitters for matter-wave interferometry

TL;DR

This paper introduces photofragmentation beam splitters for matter-wave interferometry, enabling quantum interference experiments with thermally unstable and resilient particles like biomolecules and clusters, expanding the scope of quantum physics research.

Contribution

It presents a novel beam splitting technique using photofragmentation gratings, suitable for a wider range of complex particles in matter-wave interferometry.

Findings

Demonstrated coherent beam splitting with hexafluorobenzene clusters.

Showed single-photon depletion gratings for vanillin clusters.

Extended quantum interference to thermally unstable particles.

Abstract

Extending the range of quantum interferometry to a wider class of composite nanoparticles requires new tools to diffract matter waves. Recently, pulsed photoionization light gratings have demonstrated their suitability for high mass matter-wave physics. Here we extend quantum interference experiments to a new class of particles by introducing photofragmentation beam splitters into time-domain matter-wave interferometry. Photofragmentation gratings can act on objects as different as van der Waals clusters and biomolecules which are thermally unstable and often resilient to single-photon ionization. We present data that demonstrate this coherent beam splitting mechanism with clusters of hexafluorobenzene and we show single-photon depletion gratings based both on fragmentation and ionization for clusters of vanillin.