Research

Exciting cold molecules!

We are interested in understanding and controlling cold, (chiral) molecules in the gas-phase. For this, we employ, develop and combine a variety of experimental methodologies and approaches from AMO physics and physical chemistry.

Chiral molecules are ubiquitous in nature and they are of great importance in many biological and chemical processes. They are also at the center of some interesting fundamental physics questions, for example whether there is parity violation in chiral molecules, which has been long predicted but never experimentally observed.

One of the recent milestones in chiral analysis is the method of microwave three-wave mixing where the enantiomers of a chiral molecule can be distinguished in a sensitive, non-destructive way, solely using electric-dipole allowed transitions.
We have employed this technique in our lab in a very compact, broadband experimental setup.

Controlling the internal quantum states of chiral molecules for a chosen enantiomer has a wide range of fundamental applications. 

We have set up a novel experiment using a combination of optical and microwave techniques in a molecular beam, to obtain optimum control over chiral molecules while these are in free flight in vacuum. We have demonstrated a full quantitative understanding of the underlying mechanisms and we have recently shown near-complete quantum state control of chiral molecules.

We are also working on establishing a quantum interference experiment targeted at the preparation of quantum-state selected molecule beams and the spatial separation of chiral molecules in the gas phase.