Enantiomer-Specific Pumping of Chiral Molecules

Abstract

Enantiomer-specific state transfer (ESST), which involves transferring enantiomers with different handedness of a chiral molecule into different-energy internal states, is a challenging yet significant task. Previous ESST methods are based on dynamic processes and thus require the preparation of initial states and precise control of microwave operation times. We propose a novel ESST approach, called enantiomer-specific pumping (ESP), which is based on a dissipative process and thereby eliminates the need for these two technical requirements. This approach utilizes a special microwave-induced dark state that appears exclusively for the enantiomer with a specific handedness. Specifically, in ESP, the enantiomer lacking the dark state can be pumped out of the subspace of relevant internal states, while the enantiomer with the dark state maintains a finite probability within this subspace, offering high efficiency in ESST. Notably, ESP facilitates enantiodetection without the need for enantiopure samples as reference.