Taming matter waves with light: a universal element for advanced quantum diffraction experiments
Prof. Dr. Markus Arndt (Fakultät für Physik, Universität Wien)

Quantum interferometry with clusters and molecules has two key motivations.
It is driven both by the desire to test the mass and complexity limits of the quantum superposition principle and by the vision that quantum interference experiments can deliver valuable information about internal properties of macromolecules and nanocompounds.

We will focus in particular on recent advances in the development of different classes of optical beam splitters that allow us now to explore matter wave diffraction with virtually any kind of nanoobjects, almost independent of its internal composition.

Gratings made of light may couple to the real or imaginary part of the particles' optical polarizability.
This leads to phase gratings, absorptive gratings, fragmentation gratings, thermal gratings and combinations thereof.

We will discuss in particular also the role of absorption, which may quantum correlate the molecules' internal and external degrees of freedom in ways that have not been accessible with less complex particles before.