Metal cluster matter-wave interferometry

Description

Vienna’s Long-Baseline Universal Matter-wave Interferometer (LUMI) has successfully demonstrated interference of massive molecules consisting of up to 2000 atoms and with masses up to 28.000 amu [1]. LUMI’s high force sensitivity has also been used to sense electronic, optical, magnetic and structural properties of a very diverse class of particles. For example, measuring the diamagnetic susceptibility of barium and strontium [2] or the polarizability of fullerenes with improved accuracy to previous measurements [3]. Most recently we have used a magnetic gradient field to measure interferometrically the phase shifts of cesium and rubidium atoms according to their hyperfine structure. Upgrading our interferometer to an all-optical setup using three 266 nm UV-lasers as beam splitters will allow us to exploit a wide range of metal clusters. In addition, we are working on the preparation of a stable metal cluster beam using a magnetron sputtering aggregation source. We are currently investigating beam characteristics such as the velocity distribution, divergence and temperature, but also internal cluster properties. First measurements of depletion efficiencies, optical absorption cross-sections and velocity distributions were carried out for different size-selected metal clusters. Considering our requirements, we found Hafnium and Yttrium to be promising candidates. I will show our preliminary results and explain how we will proceed to use them in our matter-wave interferometer. [1] Fein, Y. Y., Geyer, P., Zwick, P., Kiałka, F., Pedalino, S., Mayor, M., S. Gerlich & Arndt, M. (2019). Nat. Phys. 15, 1242-1245. [2] Fein, Y.Y, Shayeghi, A., Mairhofer L., Kiałka, F., Rieser, P., Geyer, P., Gerlich, S., and Arndt, M. (2020). Phys. Rev. X 10, 011014. [3] Fein, Y.Y, P., Geyer, Kiałka, F., Gerlich, S., and Arndt, M. (2019). Phys. Rev. Research 1, 03315

Period	13 Feb 2022 → 17 Feb 2022
Event title	austriXXIIIrd Symposium on Atomic, Cluster and Surface Physics 2022
Event type	Conference
Location	Obergurgl, AustriaShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International