Related papers: Diffraction of complex molecules by structures mad…
Light propagation in a medium made of densely packed dielectric spheres is investigated by using a rigorous diffraction theory. It is shown that a substantial suppression of the local density of states occurs in spectral domains where the…
We show that thin dielectric films can be used to enhance the performance of passive atomic mirrors by enabling quantum reflection probabilities of over 90% for atoms incident at velocities ~1 mm/s, achieved in recent experiments. This…
Manipulating the circular polarization of light is of great importance in chemistry and biology, as chiral molecules exhibit different physiological properties when exposed to different circularly polarized waves. Here we suggest a…
We predict and study the quantum-electrodynamical effect of parametric self-induced excitation of a molecule moving above the dielectric or conducting medium with periodic grating. In this case the radiation reaction force modulates the…
Even 100 years after its introduction by Louis de Broglie, the wave-nature of matter is often regarded as a mind-boggling phenomenon. To give an intuitive introduction to this field, we here discuss the diffraction of massive molecules…
The future fibre optic communications network will rely on photons as carriers of information, which may be stored in intensity, polarization or phase of light. However, processing of such optical information usually relies on electronics.…
Diffraction experiments have moved to ever heavier objects in recent years, now standing at the level of large molecules. Experiments in materials science on the other hand have come down to ever smaller sizes largely due to the success of…
This study introduces a novel method to investigate in-situ light transport within optically thick ensembles of cold atoms, exploiting the internal structure of alkaline-earth metals. A method for creating an optical excitation at the…
The optical properties of sub-wavelength arrays of atoms or other quantum emitters have attracted significant interest recently. For example, the strong constructive or destructive interference of emitted light enables arrays to function as…
Photonic molecules - particular systems composed of coupled optical resonators - emulate the behavior of complex physical systems exhibiting discrete energy levels. In this work, we present a novel photonic molecule composed of two strongly…
We establish that matter-wave interference at near-resonant ultraviolet optical gratings can be used to spatially separate individual conformers of complex molecules. Our calculations show that the conformational purity of the prepared beam…
The vast majority of physical objects we are dealing with are almost exclusively made of atoms. Due to their discrete level structure, single atoms have proved to be emitters of light which is incompatible with the classical description of…
We demonstrate a near-field Talbot-Lau interferometer for C-70 fullerene molecules. Such interferometers are particularly suitable for larger masses. Using three free-standing gold gratings of one micrometer period and a transversally…
The short and intense pulses of the new X-ray free electron lasers, now operational or under construction, may make possible diffraction experiments on single molecule-sized objects with high resolution, before radiation damage destroys the…
The interaction between light and vapors in the presence of magnetic fields is fundamental to many quantum technologies and applications. Recently, the ability to geometrically confine atoms into periodic structures has enabled the creation…
We study the scattering properties of optical dipole-mode vector solitons recently predicted theoretically and generated in a laboratory. We demonstrate that such a radially asymmetric composite self-trapped state resembles ``a molecule of…
Plane-wave electrons undergo momentum transfer as they scatter off a target in overlapping spherical waves. The transferred momentum leads to target structural information to be encoded in angle and energy differential scattering. For…
According to Huygens' superposition principle, light beams traveling in a linear medium will pass though one another without mutual disturbance. Indeed, it is widely held that controlling light signals with light requires intense laser…
We have studied the optical properties of gratings micro-fabricated into semiconductor wafers, which can be used for simplifying cold-atom experiments. The study entailed characterisation of diffraction efficiency as a function of coating,…
We show through rigorous calculations that dielectric microspheres can be organized by an incident electromagnetic plane wave into stable cluster configurations, which we call photonic molecules. The long-range optical binding force arises…