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Ichihara, Akira; Matsuoka, Leo*; Segawa, Etsuo*; Yokoyama, Keiichi
Physical Review A, 91(4), p.043404_1 - 043404_7, 2015/04
Times Cited Count:13 Percentile:58.58(Optics)We propose a new method for isotope-selective dissociation of diatomic molecules in the gas phase by using two kinds of terahertz-pulse fields. The first field consists of a train of pulses, which composes a frequency comb, excites the selected isotope into highly-rotationally excited state. The second intense pulse field dissociates the excited molecule by further rotational excitations. We performed wave-packet computations using the lithium chlorides LiCL and LiCl to demonstrate the applicability of our method. Nearly 20% of LiCl in the lowest rovibrational state is dissociated in the designed pulse fields, while the dissociation probability is negligible in LiCl. This method is expected to be applicable to other diatomic molecules, and to molecular ensembles whose rotational states spread in energy.
Ichihara, Akira; Matsuoka, Leo*
no journal, ,
Separation of long-lived fission products from other isotopes is important for the research of nuclear transmutation. Recently, we proposed an isotope separation method applicable to diatomic molecules in the gas phase. In this method, two kinds of terahertz (THz) optical fields are utilized to dissociate the selected isotope molecule. In this study, we investigated the isotope-selective dissociation using the LiCl and LiCl molecules in the rotational temperature of 70 K, where LiCl was employed as a substitute of CsI which is formed in nuclear reactors. The molecular wave-packet (WP) computation was carried out to demonstrate that the LiCl molecules can be dissociated selectively by using the THz optical pulses. The obtained dissociation probabilities were 20 % for LiCl, and 0.5 % for LiCl, respectively. We expect that this method is applicable to other diatomic molecular ensembles whose rotational states are in the thermal distribution.