Journal
PHYSICAL REVIEW A
Volume 101, Issue 2, Pages -Publisher
AMER PHYSICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.101.021403
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Funding
- Israel Science Foundation [746/15]
- ISF-NSFC joint research program [2520/17]
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
- Canadian Center for Chirality Research on Origins and Separation (CHIROS) - Canada Foundation for Innovation
- Patricia Elman Bildner Professorial Chair
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Molecular chirality is an omnipresent phenomenon of fundamental significance in physics, chemistry, and biology. For this reason, the search for various techniques for enantioselective control, detection, and separation of chiral molecules is of particular importance. It has been recently predicted that laser fields with twisted polarization may induce a persistent enantioselective field-free orientation of chiral molecules. Here, we report an experimental observation of this phenomenon using propylene oxide molecules (CH3CHCH2O, or PPO) spun by an optical centrifuge-a laser pulse-whose linear polarization undergoes an accelerated rotation around its propagation direction. We show that PPO molecules remain oriented on a timescale exceeding the duration of the centrifuge pulse by several orders of magnitude. The demonstrated long-time field-free enantioselective orientation may open new avenues for optical manipulation, discrimination, and, potentially, the separation of molecular enantiomers.
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