title: Photofragmentation beam splitters for matter-wave interferometry.
abstract: Extending the range of quantum interferometry to a wider class of composite nanoparticles requires new tools to diffract matter waves. Recently, pulsed photoionization light gratings have demonstrated their suitability for high mass matter-wave physics. Here, we extend quantum interference experiments to a new class of particles by introducing photofragmentation beam splitters into time-domain matter-wave interferometry. We present data that demonstrate this coherent beam splitting mechanism with clusters of hexafluorobenzene and we show single-photon depletion gratings based both on fragmentation and ionization for clusters of vanillin. We propose that photofragmentation gratings can act on a large set of van der Waals clusters and biomolecules which are thermally unstable and often resilient to single-photon ionization.
authors.affiliation: University of Vienna, Faculty of Physics, VCQ & QuNaBioS, Boltzmanngasse 5, A-1090 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Nadine
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Dörre
authors.affiliation: University of Vienna, Faculty of Physics, VCQ & QuNaBioS, Boltzmanngasse 5, A-1090 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Jonas
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rodewald
authors.affiliation: University of Vienna, Faculty of Physics, VCQ & QuNaBioS, Boltzmanngasse 5, A-1090 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Philipp
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Geyer
authors.affiliation: University of Freiburg, Faculty of Physics, Stefan-Meier-Strasse 21, D-79104 Freiburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Bernd
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: von Issendorff
authors.affiliation: University of Vienna, Faculty of Physics, VCQ & QuNaBioS, Boltzmanngasse 5, A-1090 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Philipp
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Haslinger
authors.affiliation: University of Vienna, Faculty of Physics, VCQ & QuNaBioS, Boltzmanngasse 5, A-1090 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Arndt