Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Leibscher, Monika, Pozzoli, Eugenio, Blech, Alexander, Sigalotti, Mario, Boscain, Ugo, Koch, Christiane P.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.11570
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Table of Contents:
  • Achiral molecules can be made temporarily chiral by excitation with electric fields, in the sense that an average over molecular orientations displays a net chiral signal [Tikhonov et al., Sci. Adv. 8, eade0311 (2022)]. Here, we go beyond the assumption of molecular orientations to remain fixed during the excitation process. Treating both rotations and vibrations quantum mechanically, we identify conditions for the creation of chiral vibrational wavepackets -- with net chiral signals -- in ensembles of achiral molecules which are initially randomly oriented. Based on the analysis of symmetry and controllability, we derive excitation schemes for the creation of chiral wavepackets using a combination of (a) microwave and IR pulses and (b) a static field and a sequence of IR pulses. These protocols leverage quantum rotational dynamics for pump-probe spectroscopy of chiral vibrational dynamics, extending the latter to regions of the electromagnetic spectrum other than the UV.