Related papers: An optical centrifuge with zero rotational acceler…
We demonstrate a fiber-integrated quantum optical circulator that is operated by a single atom and that relies on the chiral interaction between emitters and transversally confined light. Like its counterparts in classical optics, our…
In optomechanical systems, the libration and rotation of nanoparticles offer profound insights for ultrasensitive torque measurement and macroscopic quantum superpositions. Achievements include transitioning libration to rotation up to 6…
Aluminium monofluoride (AlF) is a promising candidate for laser cooling and trapping at high densities. We show efficient production of AlF in a bright, pulsed cryogenic buffer gas beam, and demonstrate rapid optical cycling on the Q…
The optical trapping and manipulation of small particles is an important tool for probing fluid properties at the microscale. In particular, microrheology exploits the manipulation and rotation of micron-scale particles to probe local…
A levitated non-spherical nanoparticle in a vacuum is ideal for studying quantum rotations and is an extremely sensitive torque and force detector. It has been proposed to probe fundamental particle-surface interactions such as the Casimir…
Light-induced rotation of absorbing microscopic particles by transfer of angular momentum from light to the material raises the possibility of optically driven micromachines. The phenomenon has been observed using elliptically polarized…
Several laser techniques have been suggested and demonstrated recently for preparing polarizable molecules in rapidly spinning states with a disc-like angular distribution. We consider motion of these spinning discs in inhomogeneous fields,…
We use state- and time-resolved coherent Raman spectroscopy to study the rotational dynamics of oxygen molecules in ultra-high rotational states. While it is possible to reach rotational quantum numbers up to $N \approx 50$ by increasing…
Optical rotation, a form of optical activity, is a phenomenon employed in various metrological applications and industries including chemical, food, and pharmaceutical. In naturally-occurring, as well as structured media, the integrated…
We demonstrate experimentally and theoretically a controllable way of shifting the frequency of an optical pulse by using a combination of spectral hole burning, slow light effect, and linear Stark effect in a rare-earth-ion doped crystal.…
We have recently demonstrated that optical pumping methods combined with photoassociation of ultra-cold atoms can produce ultra-cold and dense samples of molecules in their absolute rovibronic ground state. More generally, both the external…
Tests of quantum mechanics on a macroscopic scale require extreme control over mechanical motion and its decoherence. Quantum control of mechanical motion has been achieved by engineering the radiation-pressure coupling between a…
The need for precise manipulation of nanoparticles in gaseous or near-vacuum environments is encountered in many studies that include aerosol morphology, nanodroplet physics, nanoscale optomechanics, and biomolecular physics. Photophoretic…
We investigate how a uniformly rotating frame is defined as the rest frame of an observer rotating with constant angular velocity $\Omega$ around the $z$ axis of an inertial frame. Assuming that this frame is a Lorentz one, we second…
Optical dipole-traps are used in various scientific fields, including classical optics, quantum optics and biophysics. Here, we propose and implement a dipole-trap for nanoparticles that is based on focusing from the full solid angle with a…
We demonstrate experimentally a method of varying the degree of directionality in laser-induced molecular rotation. To control the ratio between the number of clockwise and counter-clockwise rotating molecules (with respect to a fixed…
We describe a pulsed rotating supersonic beam source, evolved from an ancestral device [M. Gupta and D. Herschbach, J. Phys. Chem. A 105, 1626 (2001)]. The beam emerges from a nozzle near the tip of a hollow rotor which can be spun at…
Optical pumping is an efficient method for initializing and maintaining atomic spin ensembles in a well-defined quantum spin state. Standard optical-pumping methods orient the spins by transferring photonic angular momentum to spin…
Optical fluorescence imaging is capable of measuring both the spatial and rotational dynamics of single molecules. However, unavoidable measurement noise will result in inaccurate estimates of rotational dynamics, causing a molecule to…
We provide a theory of the deflection of polar and non-polar rotating molecules by inhomogeneous static electric field. Rainbow-like features in the angular distribution of the scattered molecules are analyzed in detail. Furthermore, we…