Angular momentum transport with twisted exciton wave packets

Abstract: A chain of cofacial molecules with CN or CNh symmetry supports excitonic states with a screw-like structure. These can be quantified with the combination of an axial wavenumber and an azimuthal winding number. Combinations of these states can be used to construct excitonic wave packets that spiral down the chain with well-determined linear and angular momenta. These twisted exciton wave packets can be created and annihilated using laser pulses, and their angular momentum can be optically modified during transit. This allows for the creation of opto-excitonic circuits in which information, encoded in the angular momentum of light, is converted into excitonic wave packets that can be manipulated, transported, and then re-emitted. A tight-binding paradigm is used to demonstrate the key ideas. The approach is then extended to quantify the evolution of twisted exciton wave packets in a many-body, multi-level time-domain density functional theory setting. In both settings, numerical methods are developed that allow the site-to-site transfer of angular momentum to be quantified.