COMAMOC · Coherent Manipulation of Rotational States of Single Molecules via Direct Frequency Comb Excitation

Coherent Manipulation of Rotational States of Single Molecules via Direct Frequency Comb Excitation

The increasing ability to manipulate physical systems at the most fundamental quantum level is currently leading to a wave of new technologies that have superior performance and capabilities for many applications in metrology, sensing, communication, simulation and computing. In this context, trapped and laser-cooled atomic ions have proven to be an outstanding system. Their exploitation, is however, typically limited by their coupling to time-varying stray magnetic fields which shortens the time available to perform high precision measurements, quantum simulations or to process quantum information. In this perspective, molecular ions are very promising because they can be made almost insensitive to magnetic field fluctuations. Their complex internal structure, however, makes quantum control of molecular ions very challenging. The action COMAMOC (“COherent MAnipulation of rotational states of single Molecules via direct frequency Comb excitation”) aimed at achieving full deterministic coherent control over the quantum states of a single molecular ion by demonstrating, on a test molecule MgH+, frequency comb driven manipulation of its rotational states. This innovative approach is today made possible by the development of frequency comb laser technologies and by the invention of a refined non-destructive state detection technique named “quantum logic spectroscopy”. To achieve this goal, the scientific objectives of this Marie Skłodowska Curie Action (MSCA) have been to 1) achieve fast manipulation of both the electronic and motional quantum states of a single atomic ion with a frequency comb laser, 2) to implement quantum logic spectroscopy and 3) to combine the two techniques to perform frequency comb manipulation of pure quantum states of a molecular ion. A parallel goal of the MSCA Individual Fellowship was 4) to foster the development of the individual researcher. During the project, objective 2 has been reached; objective 1 was almost completed, while important steps have been taken towards the final objective 3. As for objective 4, the action has without any doubts greatly enhanced the development and the career prospects of the individual researcher.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union