Visualizing molecular unidirectional rotation

Kang Lin, Qiying Song, Xiaochun Gong, Qinying Ji, Haifeng Pan, Jingxin Ding, Heping Zeng, and Jian Wu

Phys. Rev. A 92, 013410 – Published 13 July 2015

Abstract

We directly visualize the spatiotemporal evolution of a unidirectional rotating molecular rotational wave packet. Excited by two time-delayed polarization-skewed ultrashort laser pulses, the cigar- or disk-shaped rotational wave packet is impulsively kicked to unidirectionally rotate as a quantum rotor which afterwards disperses and exhibits field-free revivals. The rich dynamics can be coherently controlled by varying the timing or polarization of the excitation laser pulses. The numerical simulations very well reproduce the experimental observations and intuitively revivify the thoroughgoing evolution of the molecular rotational wave packet of unidirectional spin.

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Received 18 March 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.92.013410

Authors & Affiliations

Kang Lin¹, Qiying Song¹, Xiaochun Gong¹, Qinying Ji¹, Haifeng Pan¹, Jingxin Ding¹, Heping Zeng^1,2,*, and Jian Wu^1,†

¹State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China
²Synergetic Innovation Center of Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China

^*hpzeng@phy.ecnu.edu.cn
^†jwu@phy.ecnu.edu.cn

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Vol. 92, Iss. 1 — July 2015

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