Coherent control and precision measurements of a single molecular ion
C. W. Chou1, C. Kurz1, D. B. Hume1, P. N. Plessow2, Y. Lin1,3,4, T. Fortier1, S. Diddams1, D. R. Leibrandt1,5, D. Leibfried1
1National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, Colorado, USA
2Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany
3CAS Key Laboratory of Microscale Magnetic Resonance and Department of Modern Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
4Synergetic Innovation Center of Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
5University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA
We demonstrate quantum control of a single molecular ion via quantum logic spectroscopy [1]. In our experiment, we prepare a molecular ion in pure quantum states via projective measurements. The state of the molecule can subsequently be coherently manipulated, as demonstrated by Rabi oscillations between magnetic sublevels of rotational states in either the same or distinct rotational manifolds. We use one continuous-wave laser and one frequency comb [2], both far off-resonant from molecular transitions, to manipulate the molecule. With the frequency comb, the frequencies of several rotational transitions in the molecule are measured with precision better than 1 part-per-billion. Our setup is applicable for coherent control and precision measurements of a vast number of molecular ion species while only changing the source of the molecules.
This work was supported by the US Army Research Office and the NIST quantum information program. C. Kurz acknowledges support from the Alexander von Humboldt foundation. P. N. Plessow acknowledges support by the state of Baden-Wurttemberg through bwHPC.
[1] C. W. Chou et al., Nature 545, 203 (2017).
[2] D. Leibfried, New J. Phys. 14, 023029 (2012).