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Updated: Feb 22, 2026

Direct Imaging of Laser-driven Ultrafast Molecular Rotation
Published on: February 4, 2017
Rotational Echoes: Rephasing of Centrifugal Distortion in Laser-Induced Molecular Alignment
Dina Rosenberg1,2, Ran Damari1,2, Shimshon Kallush3,4
1Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, School of Chemistry, Tel Aviv University , Tel Aviv 6997801, Israel.
Abstract:
We study and demonstrate the rephasing property of the echo response in a multilevel rotational system of iodomethane via long time-resolved optical birefringence measurements. The strong centrifugal distortion of iodomethane is utilized as a dephasing mechanism imprinted on the echo signal and is shown to rephase throughout its evolution. The dependence of the echo signal amplitude on the driving pulses' intensities is theoretically and experimentally explored. The analogy to Hahn's spin echoes is discussed, and a quantum-mechanical version of Hahn's track runners is provided for the case of multilevel rotational system.
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