Atomic and molecular interactions with photons articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Room-temperature single photon sources with memory capabilities are promising for quantum information processing, but are currently limited in their memory time or photon purity. Here, the authors report single photon emission with good antibunching from an atomic vapour cell source with 0.68 ms memory time.

    • Karsten B. Dideriksen
    • , Rebecca Schmieg
    •  & Eugene S. Polzik

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Optical pulses can be useful to create and control molecules in higher quantum states. Here the authors use optical pumping to create rotationally excited states of SiO+ molecular ion into super rotor ensemble.

    • Ivan O. Antonov
    • , Patrick R. Stollenwerk
    •  & Brian C. Odom

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Light-matter interaction leading to photoelectron emission via the photoelectric effect illustrates the quantum nature of light. Here, the authors report the dependence of the photoelectron’s Wigner time delay on the photoelectron’s emission direction relative to the molecular axis of hydrogen in strong field tunnel-ionization.

    • D. Trabert
    • , S. Brennecke
    •  & S. Eckart

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Conducting atom-optical experiments in space is interesting for fundamental physics and challenging due to different environment compared to ground. Here the authors report matter-wave interferometry in space using atomic BECs in a sounding rocket.

    • Maike D. Lachmann
    • , Holger Ahlers
    •  & Ernst M. Rasel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors develop a method to measure the coupling between a single photon source and any arbitrary photonic structure having constant density of electromagnetic states over the linewidth of the emitter. They demonstrate this method by an experiment on a single molecule coupled to an interrupted nanophotonic waveguide.

    • Sebastien Boissier
    • , Ross C. Schofield
    •  & Alex S. Clark

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors report spectroscopy and dynamics of cavity coupled NO band of sodium nitroprusside using 2D infrared and transient spectroscopy employing pump-probe technique. They find signatures of third-order nonlinearity, incoherent and strong coupling effects of vibrational polaritons.

    • Andrea B. Grafton
    • , Adam D. Dunkelberger
    •  & Jeffrey C. Owrutsky

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Extending qubit coherence times represent one of the key challenges for quantum technologies. Here, after properly suppressing magnetic-field fluctuations, frequency instability and leakage of the microwave reference-oscillator, the authors infer coherence times of 5500 s for an Yb ion qubit.

    • Pengfei Wang
    • , Chun-Yang Luan
    •  & Kihwan Kim

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Optical atomic clocks are useful tools for frequency metrology. Here the authors explore the stability of the atomic clocks and the role of the spin squeezed states for the noise reduction in these clocks.

    • Marius Schulte
    • , Christian Lisdat
    •  & Klemens Hammerer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Existing high-dimensional optical imaging techniques that record space and polarization cannot detect the photon’s time of arrival due to the limited speeds of electronic sensors. Here, the authors develop a single-shot ultrafast imaging modality to record light-speed high-dimensional events with picosecond resolution.

    • Mohammad A. Almajhadi
    • , Syed Mohammad Ashab Uddin
    •  & H. Kumar Wickramasinghe

  • Article
    | Open Access

    If we have access to information about a quantum system both before and after a measurement, we are not in the usual remit of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle anymore. Here, the authors demonstrate that, in such a scenario, one can retrodict position and momentum measurements without being limited by HUR.

    • Han Bao
    • , Shenchao Jin
    •  & Yanhong Xiao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Light-atom interactions allow exotic atomic states that could enable quantum applications for communication or metrology. Here, the authors load a large 1D array of atoms in a hollow-core photonic crystal fibre, each one prepared in an entangled state of its electronic and motional states.

    • Wui Seng Leong
    • , Mingjie Xin
    •  & Shau-Yu Lan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors report experiment and theory study of the photoionization of xenon inner shell 4d electron using attosecond pulses. They have identified two ionization paths - one corresponding to broad giant dipole resonance with short decay time and the other involving spin-flip transitions.

    • Shiyang Zhong
    • , Jimmy Vinbladh
    •  & Anne L’Huillier

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The identification of molecular quantum states becomes challenging with increasing complexity of the molecular level structure. Here, the authors non-destructively identified excited molecular states of the \({{\rm{N}}}_{2}^{+}\) by interfering forces applied to both the molecular ion and to a co-trapped atomic ion.

    • Kaveh Najafian
    • , Ziv Meir
    •  & Stefan Willitsch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Y6, as a non-fullerene acceptor for organic solar cells, has attracted intensive attention because of the low voltage loss and high charge generation efficiency. Here, Zhang et al. find that the delocalization of exciton and electron wavefunction due to strong π-π packing of Y6 is the key for the high performance.

    • Guichuan Zhang
    • , Xian-Kai Chen
    •  & Yong Cao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Atom-photon interaction and their coupling are important to understand correlated and quantum matter. Here the authors show strong coupling between degenerate interacting Fermi gas of 6Li atoms and photons.

    • Kevin Roux
    • , Hideki Konishi
    •  & Jean-Philippe Brantut

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Conical intersections, a hallmark of polyatomic molecules, can be induced with light, leading to new reaction pathways. Here, the authors show that intense fields can create complex, beyond-conical intersections even in diatomics, resulting in an unexpected angular distribution of fragment ions.

    • M. Kübel
    • , M. Spanner
    •  & A. Staudte

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Although the possibility to use weak measurements for metrological purposes has long been known, its practicality and the effective potential advantage are debated. Here, the authors demonstrate a WM-based correlation spectroscopy technique allowing low-frequency fT-level magnetometry at room temperature.

    • Weizhi Qu
    • , Shenchao Jin
    •  & Yanhong Xiao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Individually addressed rare earth atoms in solid crystals are an emerging platform for quantum information processing. Here the authors demonstrate a key requirement, by realizing single-shot, quantum non-demolition measurements of the spin of single Er3+ ions in Y2SiO5 crystals with nearly 95% fidelity.

    • Mouktik Raha
    • , Songtao Chen
    •  & Jeff D. Thompson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Matter-wave interferometry of complex molecules is challenging due to difficulties in preparing and detecting molecular beams. Here the authors demonstrate quantum behavior of a polypeptide using matter-wave interference in an all-optical time-domain Talbot-Lau interferometer.

    • A. Shayeghi
    • , P. Rieser
    •  & M. Arndt

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Light pulses with controllable parameters are desired for studying the fundamental properties of matter. Here the authors generate and use phase-manipulated and highly time-stable XUV pulse pairs to probe the coherent evolution and dephasing of XUV electronic coherences in helium and argon.

    • Andreas Wituschek
    • , Lukas Bruder
    •  & Frank Stienkemeier

  • Article
    | Open Access

    X-ray free electron lasers provide high photon flux to explore single particle diffraction imaging of biological samples. Here the authors present dynamic electronic structure calculations and benchmark them to single-particle XFEL diffraction data of sucrose clusters to predict optimal single-shot imaging conditions.

    • Phay J. Ho
    • , Benedikt J. Daurer
    •  & Christoph Bostedt

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There is interest in understanding the relaxation mechanisms of photoexcitation in atoms, molecules and other complex systems. Here the authors unravel the photoexcitation and ultrafast relaxation of superfluid helium nanodroplets using a pump-probe experiment with FEL pulses.

    • M. Mudrich
    • , A. C. LaForge
    •  & F. Stienkemeier

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors study the interference effects between different multipole transition channels by coupling a molecule to a plasmonic nanoantenna. Controlling different emission pathways of quantum emitters allows selective enhancement or suppression of the transition rate through devoted illumination schemes.

    • Evgenia Rusak
    • , Jakob Straubel
    •  & Karolina Słowik

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ultrafast molecular relaxation can be probed with short laser pulses. Here the authors study collisional behavior of a N2O and He mixture beyond secular approximation by aligning them using laser pulses and probing their rotational echoes.

    • Junyang Ma
    • , Haisu Zhang
    •  & Olivier Faucher

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding momentum transfer in light–matter interaction is intriguing. Here the authors study momentum transfer from photons to electrons and observe a time delay in the linear momentum transfer during strong-field ionization of xenon atoms using time-resolved measurements with velocity map imaging.

    • Benjamin Willenberg
    • , Jochen Maurer
    •  & Ursula Keller

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Free electron X-ray laser pulses, generated by self-amplified spontaneous emission, are stochastic in nature. Here the authors present a reconstruction method for 2D spectroscopy while preserving the intrinsic properties of the incident pulses and apply it to a study towards X-ray intensity induced effects.

    • Yves Kayser
    • , Chris Milne
    •  & Jakub Szlachetko

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Modern computation relies on modular architectures, breaking a complex algorithm into self-contained subroutines, whereas current quantum computers do not have such capability. Here, the authors provide an experimental demonstration of a modular quantum computation protocol using a trapped Yb ion.

    • Kuan Zhang
    • , Jayne Thompson
    •  & Kihwan Kim

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding light-matter interaction is important for the control of energy and charge transfer at the fundamental level. Here the authors spatially resolve proton generation in laser-induced dissociative ionization of ethanol and water on SiO2 nanoparticles and discuss the role of surface charge distribution.

    • Philipp Rupp
    • , Christian Burger
    •  & Matthias F. Kling

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Generally infrared and Raman spectroscopic methods are needed to study the symmetric and asymmetric molecular vibrational modes. Here the authors demonstrate complementary vibrational spectroscopy to organic molecules by simultaneously measuring their symmetric and anti-symmetric vibrations with one setup.

    • Kazuki Hashimoto
    • , Venkata Ramaiah Badarla
    •  & Takuro Ideguchi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Molecular movies provide crucial information of fundamental processes like energy and charge transfer, bond breaking etc. Here the authors show the time evolution of the rotational wave packet called the molecular movie of OCS molecules by Coulomb explosion imaging.

    • Evangelos T. Karamatskos
    • , Sebastian Raabe
    •  & Jochen Küpper

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Quantum coherence and the nonlinear properties of atoms are highly useful in optical devices. Here the authors show quantum-optic hybrid platforms in fully integrated chip-scale atomic diffractive optical elements by embedding hot atomic Rb vapor in microfabricated structures in silicon.

    • Liron Stern
    • , Douglas G. Bopp
    •  & John E. Kitching

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Excited-state molecular dynamics may be too complex to be resolved by femtosecond spectroscopic studies. Here the authors resolve the competing pathways in the excited state dynamics of methyl bromide by attosecond transient absorption spectroscopy, from excitation to fragmentation.

    • Henry Timmers
    • , Xiaolei Zhu
    •  & Stephen R. Leone

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Quantum metrology allows surpassing the standard quantum limit, but methods relying on squeezing require to know the orientation of the squeezed quadrature with respect to the signal. Here, instead, the authors propose a phase-insensitive Fock-state-based protocol, and demonstrate it using trapped ions.

    • Fabian Wolf
    • , Chunyan Shi
    •  & Piet O. Schmidt

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Chemical dynamics in molecules involve particle migration and bond rearrangement. Here the authors show single and double hydrogen migration in ethanol cations and dications that are generated by using intense laser pulse interaction with a jet of ethanol molecules.

    • Nora G. Kling
    • , S. Díaz-Tendero
    •  & N. Berrah

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Symmetry breaking is an important process in fundamental understanding of matter and dark matter. Here the authors discuss an experimental bound on an exotic parity odd spin- and velocity-dependent interaction between electron and nucleon by using a sensitive spin-exchange relaxation-free atomic magnetometer.

    • Young Jin Kim
    • , Ping-Han Chu
    •  & Shaun Newman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding strong X-ray induced phenomena is important for applications of X-ray free-electron laser imaging. Here, the authors show time-resolved measurements of X-ray free-electron laser induced electronic decay of CH2I2 molecule probed with NIR pulses and identify mechanisms behind different transient states lifetimes.

    • Hironobu Fukuzawa
    • , Tsukasa Takanashi
    •  & Kiyoshi Ueda

  • Article
    | Open Access

    There is growing interest in hybrid atom-nanophotonic systems for quantum optics and quantum many-body simulations. Here, the authors demonstrate trapping, fluorescence imaging and optical conveyor belt transport of cold atoms on a planar nanophotonic surface using configurable optical tweezers.

    • May E. Kim
    • , Tzu-Han Chang
    •  & Chen-Lung Hung

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding how nuclear motions affect vibrational motions in molecular liquids remains challenging in modern condensed matter physics. Here the authors study the vibrational quantum effects in liquid water and show the sensitivity on the coherent evolution of OH bonds in core-excited states.

    • Vinícius Vaz da Cruz
    • , Faris Gel’mukhanov
    •  & Michael Odelius

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Rydberg atoms can be created from photoexcitation of molecules using intense ultrafast laser pulses. Here the authors use a coincidence detection of electrons, ion and excited Rydberg atoms and their energy sharing to reveal the general mechanism of Rydberg state excitation in a dissociating H2 molecule.

    • Wenbin Zhang
    • , Xiaochun Gong
    •  & Jian Wu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Laser fields can be tuned to probe electronic motion in atoms and molecules. Here the authors ionize Na atoms using bichromatic pulses to generate electron wave packets of crescent-shaped and 7-fold rotational symmetry which do not follow the field symmetry but are determined by multiphoton interference.

    • S. Kerbstadt
    • , K. Eickhoff
    •  & M. Wollenhaupt

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Modelling of light-matter interaction in the ultrastrong coupling regime is still debated. Here, the authors study the consequences of gauge freedom for a two-level system in a single-mode cavity, showing that the Jaynes-Cummings model can outperform the quantum Rabi model even for ultrastrong coupling.

    • Adam Stokes
    •  & Ahsan Nazir

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The many-body quantum nature of molecules determines their static and dynamic properties, but remains the main obstacle in their accurate description. Here, the authors employ ultrafast spectroscopic methods to explore the dynamics of highly excited organic molecules, revealing many-body effects and hints of coherent vibronic dynamics which persist despite their molecular complexity.

    • A. Marciniak
    • , V. Despré
    •  & F. Lépine

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Strong molecular alignment without a laser field present is important for fundamental experiments in molecular science, but so far this has not been obtained for complex molecules. Here the authors use a shaped laser pulse to demonstrate field-free alignment of complex molecules in helium droplets.

    • Adam S. Chatterley
    • , Constant Schouder
    •  & Henrik Stapelfeldt

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