Sharly Fleischer et al 2009 New J. Phys. 11 105039 doi:10.1088/1367-2630/11/10/105039
Controlling the sense of molecular rotation
Focus on Quantum ControlSharly Fleischer, Yuri Khodorkovsky, Yehiam Prior and Ilya Sh Averbukh1,2
Show affiliationsPart of Focus on Quantum Control
We introduce a new scheme for controlling the sense of molecular rotation. By varying the polarization and the delay between two ultrashort laser pulses, we induce unidirectional molecular rotation, thereby forcing the molecules to rotate clockwise/counterclockwise under field-free conditions. We show that unidirectionally rotating molecules are confined to the plane defined by the two polarization vectors of the pulses, which leads to a permanent anisotropy in the molecular angular distribution. The latter may be useful for controlling collisional cross-sections and optical and kinetic processes in molecular gases. We discuss the application of this control scheme to individual components within a molecular mixture in a selective manner.
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Issue 10 (October 2009)
Received 6 July 2009
Published 30 October 2009
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Controlling the sense of molecular rotation
Sharly Fleischer et al 2009 New J. Phys. 11 105039
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