Monitoring spontaneous charge-density fluctuations by single-molecule diffraction of quantum light

KE Dorfman, S Asban, L Ye, JR Rouxel… - The journal of …, 2019 - ACS Publications
The journal of physical chemistry letters, 2019ACS Publications
Homodyne X-ray diffraction signals produced by classical light and classical detectors are
given by the modulus square of the charge density in momentum space| σ (q)| 2, missing its
phase, which is required in order to invert the signal to real space. We show that quantum
detection of the radiation field yields a linear diffraction pattern that reveals σ (q) itself,
including the phase. We further show that repeated diffraction measurements with variable
delays constitute a novel multidimensional measure of spontaneous charge-density …
Homodyne X-ray diffraction signals produced by classical light and classical detectors are given by the modulus square of the charge density in momentum space |σ(q)|2, missing its phase, which is required in order to invert the signal to real space. We show that quantum detection of the radiation field yields a linear diffraction pattern that reveals σ(q) itself, including the phase. We further show that repeated diffraction measurements with variable delays constitute a novel multidimensional measure of spontaneous charge-density fluctuations. Classical diffraction, in contrast, only reveals a subclass of even-order correlation functions. Simulations of two-dimensional signals obtained by two diffraction events are presented for the amino acid cysteine.
ACS Publications