Spin-controlled atom-ion chemistry

Tomas Sikorsky; Ziv Meir; Ruti Ben-Shlomi; Nitzan Akerman; Roee Ozeri

doi:10.1038/s41467-018-03373-y

Spin-controlled atom-ion chemistry

Tomas Sikorsky^*
, Ziv Meir
, Ruti Ben-Shlomi
, Nitzan Akerman
, Roee Ozeri

^*Corresponding author for this work

Department of Physics of Complex Systems

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

66 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Quantum control of chemical reactions is an important goal in chemistry and physics. Ultracold chemical reactions are often controlled by preparing the reactants in specific quantum states. Here we demonstrate spin-controlled atom-ion inelastic (spin-exchange) processes and chemical (charge-exchange) reactions in an ultracold Rb-Sr⁺ mixture. The ion's spin state is controlled by the atomic hyperfine spin state via spin-exchange collisions, which polarize the ion's spin parallel to the atomic spin. We achieve ~ 90% spin polarization due to the absence of strong spin-relaxation channel. Charge-exchange collisions involving electron transfer are only allowed for (RbSr)⁺ colliding in the singlet manifold. Initializing the atoms in various spin states affects the overlap of the collision wave function with the singlet molecular manifold and therefore also the reaction rate. Our observations agree with theoretical predictions.

Original language	English
Article number	920
Journal	Nature Communications
Volume	9
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03373-y
Publication status	Published - 1 Dec 2018

Funding

Data availability. All relevant data are available from the authors on request. We thank Alexei Buchachenko, Timur Tscherbul, Masato Morita, Olivier Dulieu, Edvardas Narevicius and Stefan Wilitsch for helpful discussions. This work was supported by the Crown Photonics Center, ICore-Israeli excellence center circle of light, the Israeli Science Foundation, and the European Research Council (Consolidator Grant No. 616919-Ionology).

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

General Chemistry
General Biochemistry,Genetics and Molecular Biology
General
General Physics and Astronomy

Access to Document

10.1038/s41467-018-03373-y

Cite this

@article{bb21fba5b0a64ea584ee94be61d67e68,

title = "Spin-controlled atom-ion chemistry",

abstract = "Quantum control of chemical reactions is an important goal in chemistry and physics. Ultracold chemical reactions are often controlled by preparing the reactants in specific quantum states. Here we demonstrate spin-controlled atom-ion inelastic (spin-exchange) processes and chemical (charge-exchange) reactions in an ultracold Rb-Sr+ mixture. The ion's spin state is controlled by the atomic hyperfine spin state via spin-exchange collisions, which polarize the ion's spin parallel to the atomic spin. We achieve \textasciitilde{} 90\% spin polarization due to the absence of strong spin-relaxation channel. Charge-exchange collisions involving electron transfer are only allowed for (RbSr)+ colliding in the singlet manifold. Initializing the atoms in various spin states affects the overlap of the collision wave function with the singlet molecular manifold and therefore also the reaction rate. Our observations agree with theoretical predictions.",

author = "Tomas Sikorsky and Ziv Meir and Ruti Ben-Shlomi and Nitzan Akerman and Roee Ozeri",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2018 The Author(s).",

year = "2018",

month = dec,

day = "1",

doi = "10.1038/s41467-018-03373-y",

language = "English",

volume = "9",

journal = "Nature Communications",

issn = "2041-1723",

publisher = "Nature Research",

number = "1",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Spin-controlled atom-ion chemistry

AU - Sikorsky, Tomas

AU - Meir, Ziv

AU - Ben-Shlomi, Ruti

AU - Akerman, Nitzan

AU - Ozeri, Roee

PY - 2018/12/1

Y1 - 2018/12/1

N2 - Quantum control of chemical reactions is an important goal in chemistry and physics. Ultracold chemical reactions are often controlled by preparing the reactants in specific quantum states. Here we demonstrate spin-controlled atom-ion inelastic (spin-exchange) processes and chemical (charge-exchange) reactions in an ultracold Rb-Sr+ mixture. The ion's spin state is controlled by the atomic hyperfine spin state via spin-exchange collisions, which polarize the ion's spin parallel to the atomic spin. We achieve ~ 90% spin polarization due to the absence of strong spin-relaxation channel. Charge-exchange collisions involving electron transfer are only allowed for (RbSr)+ colliding in the singlet manifold. Initializing the atoms in various spin states affects the overlap of the collision wave function with the singlet molecular manifold and therefore also the reaction rate. Our observations agree with theoretical predictions.

AB - Quantum control of chemical reactions is an important goal in chemistry and physics. Ultracold chemical reactions are often controlled by preparing the reactants in specific quantum states. Here we demonstrate spin-controlled atom-ion inelastic (spin-exchange) processes and chemical (charge-exchange) reactions in an ultracold Rb-Sr+ mixture. The ion's spin state is controlled by the atomic hyperfine spin state via spin-exchange collisions, which polarize the ion's spin parallel to the atomic spin. We achieve ~ 90% spin polarization due to the absence of strong spin-relaxation channel. Charge-exchange collisions involving electron transfer are only allowed for (RbSr)+ colliding in the singlet manifold. Initializing the atoms in various spin states affects the overlap of the collision wave function with the singlet molecular manifold and therefore also the reaction rate. Our observations agree with theoretical predictions.

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85042767607

U2 - 10.1038/s41467-018-03373-y

DO - 10.1038/s41467-018-03373-y

M3 - Article

C2 - 29500464

SN - 2041-1723

VL - 9

JO - Nature Communications

JF - Nature Communications

IS - 1

M1 - 920

ER -

Spin-controlled atom-ion chemistry

Abstract

Funding

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this