OTIMA interferometry

Interferometry with vacuum ultraviolet (157 nm) photodepletion gratings was originally proposed for a cold pulsed metal cluster fountain [1], analyzed in the Wigner formalism for near-field Talbot-Lau interferometry in the time domain [2] and first realized with a horizontal scheme of pulsed clusters of organic molecules such as the Antrhacene decamer Ac10 [3].    

OTIMA was originally conceived as an optical time-domain "ionizing" matter-wave interferometer, but any type of periodic single- or few-photon beam depletion mechanism can act as an amplitude modulating diffraction grating. This has been demonstrated for van der Waals bound clusters of hexafluorobenzene [4].

With recent advances in ultra-fast molecular desorption of even fragile biopolymers, it became even possible to demonstrate quantum interference of the the antibiotic polypeptide Gramicidin D. Gramicidin is  a molecule composed of 15 amino acids, including 3 tryptophans, which undergo single-photon ionization under 157 nm irradiation [5].  

  1. Elisabeth Reiger, Lucia Hackermüller, Martin Berninger, and Markus Arndt,
    Exploration of gold nanoparticle beams for matter wave interferometry
    Opt Commun 264 (2), 326-332 (2006).
  2. Stefan Nimmrichter, Philipp Haslinger, Klaus Hornberger, and Markus Arndt,
    Concept of an ionizing time-domain matter-wave interferometer,
    New Journal of Physics 13 (7), 075002 (2011).
  3. Philipp Haslinger, Nadine Dörre, Philipp Geyer, Jonas Rodewald, Stefan Nimmrichter, and Markus Arndt,
    A universal matter-wave interferometer with optical ionization gratings in the time domain,
    Nature Physics 9, 144–148 (2013).
  4. Nadine Dörre, Jonas Rodewald, Philipp Geyer, Bernd von Issendorff, Philipp Haslinger, and Markus Arndt,
    Photofragmentation Beam Splitters for Matter-Wave Interferometry
    Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 233001 (2014).
  5. A. Shayeghi, P. Rieser, G. Richter, U. Sezer, J. H. Rodewald, P. Geyer, T. J. Martinez, and M. Arndt, Matter-wave interference of a native polypeptide
    Nat. Communs. 11, 1447 (2020).