Raman gas self-organizing into deep nano-trap lattice.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 27677451.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms12779 and PMC identifier 5052700.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Trapping or cooling molecules has rallied a long-standing effort for its impact in exploring new frontiers in physics and in finding new phase of matter for quantum technologies. Here we demonstrate a system for light-trapping molecules and stimulated Raman scattering based on optically self-nanostructured molecular hydrogen in hollow-core photonic crystal fibre. A lattice is formed by a periodic and ultra-deep potential caused by a spatially modulated Raman saturation, where Raman-active molecules are strongly localized in a one-dimensional array of nanometre-wide sections. Only these trapped molecules participate in stimulated Raman scattering, generating high-power forward and backward Stokes continuous-wave laser radiation in the Lamb-Dicke regime with sub-Doppler emission spectrum. The spectrum exhibits a central line with a sub-recoil linewidth as low as ∼14 kHz, more than five orders of magnitude narrower than conventional-Raman pressure-broadened linewidth, and sidebands comprising Mollow triplet, motional sidebands and four-wave mixing.