Optical Parametric Amplifier for expanding the utility of an Optical Centrifuge at UBC

需要和紧迫性。在过去的几年里，我的UBC研究小组建造了一种独特的激光仪器——“光学离心机”，并用它来创造和研究新的奇特的分子物体，被称为“分子超级转子”。超转子是由激光场控制其同步单向旋转的超快旋转分子。我们的离心机是世界上三个（到2017年两个）之一，也是加拿大唯一的一个。它也是世界上唯一一台可以直接测量分子“超旋转”的三个基本参数——频率、方向性和相位的离心机。这个独特的工具使我们能够进行许多开创性的分子研究，这在任何其他研究实验室都是不可能的。然而，一些正在进行的和新提出的实验，或者很快就会受到这样一个事实的阻碍，即我在UBC的团队目前没有可变波长的超快激光源。这种源，被称为光参量放大器（OPA），在这个RTI应用中是必需的。如果没有要求的支持，我们现有的对世界上其他组织的优势和加拿大（离心机的发明地！）的领导地位将迅速削弱。* * * * * *研究项目。到目前为止，我们已经研究了孤立分子超级转子的性质及其在热分子系综中的碰撞性质，其中量子相关和多体物理不太重要。在接下来的几年里，我将扩展这项研究，利用超流氦和氦纳米液滴中分子的受控激光自旋来研究嵌入在多体量子系统中的分子的旋转动力学。70多年前，人们用机械控制的旋转陀螺在宏观尺度上探测超流动性。由于缺乏可控的微观转子，在纳米尺度上进行类似的研究被证明是不可能的。光学离心机与可变波长的超短激光脉冲源（要求的OPA）相结合，使这些研究成为可能，而我的小组处于领先地位的理想位置。******知识和培训的进步。量子超流体内部分子旋转的受控激活将为我们研究旋转物体与复杂量子系统相互作用的动力学提供机会。更好地理解这种动力学将对未来量子技术的发展产生直接影响，这些技术有望彻底改变安全通信、生物系统的计算机分析以及对电场、磁场和引力场的微小变化的感知。opa在最先进的超快光学实验室中很常见，在光谱学，化学物理，非线性光学，材料科学等领域有许多应用。有机会直接学习这种光学技术并将其应用于自己的研究将为我的学生提供一种非常有市场价值的技能，这在其他任何地方都很难获得

NEED and URGENCY. In the past few years, my UBC research group has built a unique laser instrument – an “optical centrifuge”, and used it to create and study new and exotic molecular objects, known as “molecular super-rotors”. Super-rotors are ultrafast rotating molecules whose synchronous uni-directional rotation is controlled by the laser field. Our centrifuge is one of three in the world (two until 2017) and the only one in Canada. It is also the only centrifuge worldwide in which the three fundamental parameters of molecular “super-rotation” – its frequency, directionality and phase – can be measured directly. This unique tool enabled us to perform a number of pioneering molecular studies, impossible in any other research laboratory. Yet several ongoing and newly proposed experiments are, or soon will be, stymied by the fact that no ultrafast laser source with variable wavelength is currently available to my group at UBC. Such source, known as an Optical Parametric Amplifier (OPA), is requested in this RTI application. Without the requested support, our existing edge over other groups around the world and the leadership of Canada (where the centrifuge was invented!) will quickly diminish.******RESEARCH PROGRAM. Until now, we have investigated the properties of isolated molecular super-rotors and their collisional properties within thermal molecular ensembles, where quantum correlations and many-body physics are of little importance. In the next few years, I will expand this research to studying rotational dynamics of molecules embedded in many-body quantum systems using the controlled laser spinning of molecules in superfluid helium and helium nanodroplets. More than 70 years ago, superfluidity was probed on a macroscopic scale by a mechanically controlled rotating top. Similar studies at the nanoscale proved impossible due to the lack of controllable microscopic rotors. An optical centrifuge combined with a source of ultrashort laser pulses of variable wavelength (the requested OPA) makes these studies feasible, and my group is ideally positioned to take the lead.******ADVANCEMENT of KNOWLEDGE and TRAINING. Controlled activation of molecular rotation inside quantum superfluids will provide us with an opportunity to study the dynamics of a rotating object interacting with complex quantum systems. Better understanding of such dynamics will have direct impact on the development of future quantum technologies, which are expected to revolutionize secure communications, computer analysis of biological systems, and sensing of small changes in electrical, magnetic and gravitational fields. OPAs are commonplace in state-of-the-art ultrafast optics laboratories, with numerous applications in spectroscopy, chemical physics, nonlinear optics, material science and beyond. Opportunities to learn this optical technology first-hand and utilize it in their own research will provide my students with a very marketable skill, which is hard to acquire anywhere else.***