quantum state control of chiral molecules

Recently, the enantiomer-specific state transfer (ESST) method [1] was demonstrated using tailored microwave fields. This method allows to populate or depopulate a rotational state of a chosen enantiomer, providing a way of quantum-controlled chiral separation. Thus far, the transfer efficiency of ESST has been limited by thermal population of the energy levels participating in ESST [1,2] and by M_J degeneracy [3]. To address these prior limitations, we developed a new experimental scheme which increases the efficiency of ESST by over a factor of ten compared to previously reported values [4]. This scheme enables a quantitative comparison between experiment and theory for the transfer efficiency in what is the simplest ESST triangle for any chiral molecule, that is, the one involving the absolute ground state level. Starting with a racemic mixture, a straightforward extension of this scheme should be able to create a molecular beam with an enantiomer-pure rotational level, holding great prospects for future spectroscopic and scattering studies.

References

[1] S. Eibenberger, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 123002 (2017)

[2] P. Cristóbal, et al., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 56, 12512 (2017)

[3] M. Leibscher, et al., arXiv:2010.09296 (2020)

[4] J.H. Lee, et al., arXiv:2112.09058 (2021)