Observation of Bloch Oscillations in Molecular Rotation

We report the 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...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPhysical review letters Vol. 115; no. 20; p. 203002
Main Authors Floß, Johannes, Kamalov, Andrei, Averbukh, Ilya Sh, Bucksbaum, Philip H
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 11.11.2015
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Summary:We report the 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 localization phenomena in quantum transport.
ISSN:1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/physrevlett.115.203002