The team

Members : Benoît Darquié, Anne Amy-Klein, Mathieu Manceau, Olivier Lopez
Visitors : Alexander Shelkovnikov (Lebedev Physics Institute, Moscow)

PhD students : Yuhao Liu, Marylise Saffre, Agathe Bonifacio, Sahil Viel
Postdocs : Minh Nhut Ngo, Raphaël Hahn, Weinling Dong

Former members : Sean Tokunaga (maître de conférences), Matthieu Pierens (doctorant), Dang Bao An Tran (doctorant), Louis Lecordier (doctorant), Anne Cournol (postdoc), Nicolas Cahuzac (doctorant), Hemanth Dinesan (Postdoctorant)

Research activities

We are developing a next-generation molecular clock designed for high-precision vibrational spectroscopy of complex polyatomic molecules in the gas phase. The proposed technologies are at the forefront of research on cold molecules and frequency metrology, opening up new possibilities for the use of polyatomic molecules in fundamental physics tests and the exploration of the Standard Model.

This device will first be used to measure the extremely small energy difference between the enantiomers of a chiral molecule—a signature of a parity (left-right symmetry) violation effect induced by the weak interaction, which has never been observed before. The experiment we are developing was described as a « frontier experiment » by the journal Nature. This measurement is important for several reasons. It is a way to probe the weak interaction and would thus serve as a test of the Standard Model. It would also shed light on the origin of biological homochirality—the still unexplained fact that life on Earth operates exclusively with L amino acids and D sugars, but not with their mirror images.

We are therefore building a molecular beam Ramsey interferometry apparatus using ultra-narrow mid-infrared lasers, calibrated to primary frequency standards (benefiting from our work on frequency transfer via optical link). This will enable us to measure absolute frequencies with an uncertainty of 10⁻¹⁴ and frequency differences resulting from parity violation with an uncertainty better than 10⁻¹⁵. Moreover, our collaborating chemists are now able to supply us with samples of chiral molecules, which, although in the solid state, are expected to exhibit a parity violation-induced frequency difference on the order of a few 10⁻¹⁴.

News

Available Positions

We are currently looking for an M2 student for an internship in spring 2025 that could be followed by a PhD thesis : see Offer

Funding

We acknowledge the support from various funding agencies :

ANR ULTIµOS
European Partnership on Metrology Programme COMOMET
AAP INP CNRS EMERGENCE
AAP INP CNRS TREMPLIN

AAP PME QUANTIP COBRA
PNGRAM Programme national gravitation références astronomie métrologie
ANR EDMMA

Publications / Thesis

2025

2024

G. G. Arellano et al., Probing molecules in gas cells of subwavelength thickness with high frequency resolution.
Nature Communications 15 (2024).
D. B. A. Tran et al., Near-to mid-IR spectral purity transfer with a tunable frequency comb: Methanol frequency metrology over a 1.4 GHz span.
APL Photonics 9 (2024).

2022

M. R. Fiechter et al., Toward Detection of the Molecular Parity Violation in Chiral Ru(acac)₃ and Os(acac)₃.
The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters 13 (2022).
G. Barontini et al., Measuring the stability of fundamental constants with a network of clocks.
EPJ Quantum Technology 9 (2022).

2021

B. Darquié et al., Valence-shell photoelectron circular dichroism of ruthenium(III)-tris-(acetylacetonato) gas-phase enantiomers.
Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics 23 (2021).
J. Lukusa Mudiayi et al., Linear probing of molecules at micrometric distances from a surface with sub-Doppler frequency resolution.
Physical Review Letters 127 (2021).

2010-2020

E. S. Gauthier et al., Long‐lived circularly polarized phosphorescence in helicene‐NHC rhenium (I) complexes: the influence of helicene, halogen, and stereochemistry on emission properties.
Angewandte Chemie International Edition 59, no. 22 (2020).
M. L. Diouf et al., Lamb-dips and Lamb-peaks in the saturation spectrum of HD.
Optics Letters 44, no. 19 (2019).
R. Santagata et al., High-precision methanol spectroscopy with a widely tunable SI-traceable frequency-comb-based mid-infrared QCL.
Optica 6, no. 4 (2019).
A. Cournol et al., A new experiment to test parity symmetry in cold chiral molecules using vibrational spectroscopy.
Quantum Electronics 49, no. 3 (2019).
N. Saleh et al., An oxorhenium complex bearing a chiral cyclohexane-1-olato-2-thiolato ligand: Synthesis, stereochemistry, and theoretical study of parity violation vibrational frequency shifts
Chirality 30 (2018).
D. Segal et al., Studying fundamental physics using quantum enabled technologies with trapped molecular ions.
Journal of Modern Optics 65 (2018).
S. K. Tokunaga et al., High-resolution mid-infrared spectroscopy of buffer-gas-cooled methyltrioxorhenium molecules.
New Journal of Physics 19 (2017).
P. Asselin et al., Characterising molecules for fundamental physics: an accurate spectroscopic model of methyltrioxorhenium derived from new infrared and millimetre-wave measurements.
Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics 19 (2017).
S. K. Tokunaga et al., Probing weak force induced parity violation by high resolution mid-infrared molecular spectroscopy.
Molecular Physics 111 (2013).
N. Saleh et al., A chiral rhenium complex with predicted high parity violation effects: synthesis, stereochemical characterization by VCD spectroscopy and quantum chemical calculations.
Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics 15, no. 26 (2013).
C. Stoeffler et al., High resolution spectroscopy of methyltrioxorhenium: towards the observation of parity violation in chiral molecules.
Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics 13, no. 3 (2011).
B. Darquié et al., Progress toward the first observation of parity violation in chiral molecules by high‐resolution laser spectroscopy.
Chirality 22, no. 10 (2010).

2000-2010

A. Shelkovnikov et al., Stability of the proton-to-electron mass ratio.
Physical Review Letters 100 (2008).
M. Ziskind et al., Search for resolution of chiral fluorohalogenomethanes and parity‐violation effects at the molecular level.
Chirality 15 (2003).
M. Ziskind et al., Improved sensitivity in the search for a parity-violating energy difference in the vibrational spectrum of the enantiomers of CHFClBr.
The European Physical Journal D 20 (2002).
C. Grain et al., High-sensitivity detection of two-photon Ramsey fringes at 30 THz by frequency-comb assisted stimulated emission.
Journal of Quantum Electronics 38 (2002).
A. Amy-Klein et al., Slow molecule detection or Ramsey fringes in two-photon spectroscopy: which is better for high resolution spectroscopy and metrology?
Optics Express 4 (2002).
M. Ziskind et al., Search for a frequency difference in the spectrum of the enantiomers of chiral molecules: How to reach a sensitivity better than 10⁻¹⁴?
Laser Frequency Stabilization, Standards, Measurement and Applications (2001).
T. Marrel et al., High precision rovibrational and hyperfine analysis of the v₄ = 1 level of bromochlorofluoromethane.
Journal of Molecular Structure 599 (2001).
C. Daussy et al., Limit on the parity nonconserving energy difference between the enantiomers of a chiral molecule by laser spectroscopy.
Physical Review Letters 83 (1999).

1970-2000

J. L. Hall et al., Measurement of methane hyperfine structure using laser saturated absorption.
Phys. Rev. Letters, 30, 1101-1104 (1973).
Ch. J. Bordé et al., Saturated absorption line shape: Calculation of the transit-time broadening by a perturbation approach.
Phys. Rev. A, 14, 236-263 (1976).
J. L. Hall et al., Shift and broadening of saturated absorption resonances due to curvature of the laser wavefronts.
Appl. Phys. Letters, 29, 788-790 (1976).
J. L. Hall et al., Direct optical resolution of the recoil effect using saturated absorption spectroscopy.
Phys. Rev. Letters, 37, 1339-1342 (1976).
A. Clairon et al., Towards a new absolute frequency reference grid in the 28 THz range.
Optics Comm., 35, 368-372 (1980).
G. Camy et al., Heterodyne saturation spectroscopy through frequency modulation of the saturating beam.
Opt. Comm., 41, 325-330 (1982).
Ch. J. Bordé et al., Optical Ramsey fringes with travelling waves.
Phys. Rev. A, 30, 1836-1848 (1984).
Ch. J. Bordé et al., Observation of optical Ramsey fringes in the 10 μm spectral region using a supersonic beam of SF6.
Appl. Phys. B, 28, 82 (1982).
Ch. Salomon et al., A phase-locked waveguide CO2 laser for broad-band saturation spectroscopy with kilohertz resolution and absolute frequency accuracy. First observation of superhyperfine structures in the ν3 band of SF6.
Appl. Phys. B, 29, 153 (1982).
R. J. Butcher et al., Hyperfine lifting of parity degeneracy and the question of inversion in a rigid molecule.
Phys. Rev. Letters, 70, 2698-2701 (1993).
J. Ishikawa et al., Strong-field effects in coherent saturation spectroscopy of atomic beams.
Phys. Rev. A, 49, 4794-4825 (1994).
Ch. Chardonnet et al., Ultra-high resolution saturation spectroscopy of slow molecules in an external cell.
Appl. Phys. B, 59, 333-343 (1994).
Ch. Daussy et al., Limit on the parity nonconserving energy difference between the enantiomers of a chiral molecule by laser spectroscopy.
Phys. Rev. Letters, 83, 1554-1557 (1999).
A. Amy-Klein, et al., Slow molecule detection or Ramsey fringes in two-photon spectroscopy: which is better for high resolution spectroscopy and metrology?
Optics Express 4.2 (1999).
P.E. Durand, et al. Slow-molecule detection in Doppler-free two-photon spectroscopy.
Europhysics Letters 37.2 (1997).
Constantin, L. F., et al., 2.3-kHz two-photon Ramsey fringes at 30 THz.
Physical Review A 60.2 (1999).
Ch. J. Bordé et al., The Pauli principle and ultrahigh resolution spectroscopy of polyatomic molecules.
Spin-Statistics Connection and Commutation Relations, American Institute of Physics (2000).

Thesis

N. Cahuzac, Lasers à cascade quantique moyen infrarouges stabilisés sur des peignes de fréquences avec traçabilité au SI : application à la spectroscopie de haute précision du méthanol et de l’ozone.
Thèse de doctorat, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, 2023.
D. B. A. Tran, Widely tunable and SI-traceable frequency-comb-stabilised mid-infrared quantum cascade laser: application to high precision spectroscopic measurements of polyatomic molecules.
PhD Thesis, Université Paris 13, 2019.
C. Stoeffler, Spectroscopie à très haute résolution de molécules sublimées en jet supersonique: vers une observation de la non conservation de la parité dans les molécules.
Thèse de doctorat, , Université Paris 13, 2011.
C. Salomon, Franges de Ramsey et spectroscopie laser à ultra-haute résolution dans l’infrarouge.
Thèse de doctorat, Université de Paris, 1984.