2007/08/24 by Lucia Hackermueller, Lucia Hackermüller, Klaus Hornberger +4
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Quantum Information and Cryptography #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/s00340-007-2873-6
published as Appl. Phys. B 89, 469-473 (2007) · 5 pages, 3 Figures
arxiv created 2007/08/24 · openalex publication_date 2007/11/22 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We discuss a novel application of matter wave interferometry to characterize the scalar optical polarizability of molecules at 532 nm. The interferometer presented here consists of two material absorptive gratings and one central optical phase grating. The interaction of the molecules with the standing light wave is determined by the optical dipole force and is therefore directly dependent on the molecular polarizability at the wavelength of the diffracting laser light. By comparing the observed matter-wave interference contrast with a theoretical model for several intensities of the standing light wave and molecular velocities we can infer the polarizability in this first proof-of-principle experiment for the fullerenes C60 and C70 and we find a good agreement with literature values.