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Imprinting Chirality on Atoms Using Synthetic Chiral Light Fields.
Nicola Mayer1, Serguei Patchkovskii1, Felipe Morales1
1Max-Born-Institute, Max-Born Strasse 2A, 12489 Berlin, Germany.
Physical Review Letters
|December 23, 2022
Summary
Atoms can exhibit chirality through specific quantum states. This study demonstrates exciting atomic chirality with tailored light fields and probing it with photoelectron circular dichroism.
Area of Science:
- Quantum physics
- Atomic physics
- Chirality studies
Background:
- Atoms are typically considered achiral.
- Chiral atomic states can be constructed as superpositions of quantum states.
Purpose of the Study:
- To demonstrate the excitation of chiral atomic states using tailored light fields.
- To show how this induced chirality can be detected.
- To imprint and measure chirality in photoelectrons.
Main Methods:
- Time-dependent Schrödinger equation simulations.
- Excitation using tailored light fields in weak and strong-field regimes.
- Probing with photoelectron circular dichroism.
Main Results:
- Demonstrated creation of time-dependent bound chiral wave packets in sodium atoms.
- Showed that photoelectron circular dichroism can probe time-dependent handedness.
- Imprinted chirality onto photoelectron wave packets via strong-field ionization.
Conclusions:
- Atomic chirality can be experimentally realized and controlled.
- Photoelectron circular dichroism is a viable method for detecting atomic chirality.
- Introduced a new measure to characterize photoelectron wave packet handedness.
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