Sensing a THz electric field with a molecular ion clock

Florin Lucian Constantin (1)

1 PhLAM - Laboratoire de Physique des Lasers, Atomes et Molécules - UMR 8523

This contribution proposes a new method for THz-wave detection that exploits the sensitivity to external fields of the transitions of accurate molecular ion clocks. A THz electric field, off-resonantly coupled to the HD+ energy levels, may be characterized from the comparison between the measurements of the lighshifts induced on a two-photon rovibrational transition probed on cold trapped molecular ions, and the theoretical predictions of the molecular ion theory. A set of six independent lightshift measurements may be converted into the amplitudes and the phases of the Cartesian components of the THz electric field in the laboratory frame.

Mots clés: molecular ion clock; THz sensing; electrometry; two-photon spectroscopy; Zeeman effect; ac-Stark shift; hydrogen molecular ions; cold and trapped molecular ions

Domaines: Physique Quantique [quant-ph]; Optique [physics.optics]

Florin Lucian Constantin. Sensing a THz electric field with a molecular ion clock. Optical and Quantum Sensing and Precision Metrology, Mar 2021, San Francisco, CA, United States. pp.1170046, ⟨10.1117/12.2591976⟩. ⟨hal-03335652⟩