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

需求和紧迫感。在过去的几年里，我所在的UBC课题组建造了一台独特的激光仪器-光学离心机，并用它来创造和研究新的、奇异的分子物体，也就是人们熟知的“分子超级旋翼”。超转子是一种超高速旋转的分子，其同步单向旋转由激光场控制。我们的离心机是世界上三台离心机之一(2017年之前有两台)，也是加拿大唯一的一台。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。这一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正在进行中，或者很快就会受到阻碍，因为我在UBC的团队目前还没有可用的可变波长超快激光光源。在该RTI应用中需要这样的源，称为光参量放大器(OPA)。如果没有所要求的支持，我们现有的优势将超过世界上其他组织和加拿大的领导地位(离心机就是在加拿大发明的！)将迅速减少。*研究计划。到目前为止，我们已经在热分子系综中研究了孤立分子超级转子的性质和它们的碰撞性质，其中量子关联和多体物理并不重要。在接下来的几年里，我将把这项研究扩展到研究嵌入多体量子系统中的分子的旋转动力学，使用超流氦和氦纳米液滴中分子的受控激光自旋。70多年前，通过机械控制的旋转顶在宏观尺度上探测到了超流现象。由于缺乏可控的微型转子，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(请求的OPA)相结合，使这些研究成为可能，而我的团队处于领先地位。*知识和培训的进步。量子超流体中分子旋转的受控激活将为我们提供一个研究旋转物体与复杂量子系统相互作用的动力学的机会。对这种动力学的更好理解将对未来量子技术的发展产生直接影响，预计这将给安全通信、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传感带来革命性的变化。OPA在最先进的超快光学实验室中司空见惯，在光谱学、化学物理、非线性光学、材料科学等领域有着广泛的应用。亲身学习这种光学技术并将其用于自己的研究的机会将为我的学生提供一种非常有市场的技能，这是在其他任何地方都很难获得的。*

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.***