Near-complete chiral selection in rotational quantum states

Raw data for the study "Near-complete chiral selection in rotational quantum states" Abstract: Controlling the internal quantum states of chiral molecules for a selected enantiomer has a wide range of fundamental applications from collision and reaction studies, quantum information to precision spectroscopy. Achieving full enantiomer-specific state transfer is a key requirement for such applications. Using tailored microwave fields, a chosen rotational state can be enriched for a selected enantiomer, even starting from a racemic mixture. This enables rapid switching between samples of different enantiomers in a given state, holding great promise, for instance, for measuring parity violation in chiral molecules. Although perfect state-specific enantiomeric enrichment is theoretically feasible, achieving the required experimental conditions seemed unrealistic. Here, we realize near-ideal conditions, overcoming both the limitations of thermal population and spatial degeneracy in rotational states. We achieve up to 92% enantiomer-specific state transfer efficiency using enantiopure samples. This indicates that up to 96% state-specific enantiomeric purity can be obtained from a racemic mixture, in an approach that is universally applicable to all chiral molecules of C1 symmetry. Our work integrates the control over internal quantum states with molecular chirality, thus expanding the field of state-selective molecular beams studies to include chiral research.

本研究《近完全手性选择在旋转量子态中的应用》的原始数据。控制手性分子的内部量子态以选择特定对映体具有广泛的基础应用，涵盖碰撞与反应研究、量子信息以及精密光谱学等领域。实现全对映体特定状态转移是此类应用的关键要求。利用定制微波场，可以针对特定对映体富集所选旋转状态，即便从外消旋混合物出发亦可。这为实现不同对映体在特定状态间的快速切换提供了可能，对于测量手性分子的宇称违反现象尤为有前景。尽管理论上完美状态特定对映体富集是可行的，但实现所需的实验条件似乎是不切实际的。在本研究中，我们实现了近理想条件，克服了旋转态中热分布和空间简并性的限制。使用对映纯样品，我们实现了高达92%的对映体特定状态转移效率。这表明，从外消旋混合物中可以获得高达96%的状态特定对映体纯度，该方法普遍适用于所有C1对称的手性分子。我们的工作将内部量子态的控制与分子手性相结合，从而将状态选择性分子束研究领域的应用扩展至手性研究。