Related papers: Loading Stark-decelerated molecules into electrost…
Polar molecules are desirable systems for quantum simulations and cold chemistry. Molecular ions are easily trapped, but a bias electric field applied to polarize them tends to accelerate them out of the trap. We present a general solution…
We describe a simple experimental technique which allows us to store a small and deterministic number of neutral atoms in an optical dipole trap. The desired atom number is prepared in a magneto-optical trap overlapped with a single focused…
We propose a novel Sisyphus cooling scheme for atoms confined in a far off resonance optical dipole trap. Utilizing the differential trap-induced AC Stark shift, two electronic levels of the atom are resonantly coupled by a cooling laser…
Recently, a decelerator for neutral polar molecules has been presented that operates on the basis of macroscopic, three-dimensional, traveling electrostatic traps (Osterwalder et al., Phys. Rev. A 81, 051401 (2010)). In the present paper, a…
Beams of helium atoms in Rydberg-Stark states with principal quantum number $n=48$ and electric dipole moments of 4600~D have been decelerated from a mean initial longitudinal speed of 2000~m/s to zero velocity in the laboratory-fixed…
Mechanical oscillators based on levitated particles are promising candidates for sensitive detectors and platforms for testing fundamental physics. The targeted quality factors for such oscillators correspond to extremely low damping rates…
Quasiparticles represent an intrinsic source of perturbation for superconducting qubits, leading to both dissipation of the qubit energy and dephasing. Recently, it has been shown that normal-metal traps may efficiently reduce the…
Calcium monofluoride (CaF) molecules are loaded into an optical dipole trap (ODT) and subsequently laser cooled within the trap. Starting with magneto-optical trapping, we sub-Doppler cool CaF and then load $150(30)$ CaF molecules into an…
Detecting the internal state of polar molecules is a substantial challenge when standard techniques such as resonance-enhanced multi photon ionization (REMPI) or laser-induced fluorescense (LIF) do not work. As this is the case for most…
Stark deceleration is a technique that uses time-varying inhomogeneous electric fields to decelerate polar molecules for various molecular beam and trapping experiments. New ring-geometry Stark decelerators with continuously varying…
We have designed and implemented a new Stark decelerator based on wire electrodes, which is suitable for ultrahigh vacuum applications. The 100 deceleration stages are fashioned out of 0.6 mm diameter tantalum and the array's total length…
Direct laser cooling of molecules has reached a phase space density exceeding 10$^{-6}$ in optical traps, but with rather small molecular numbers. To progress towards quantum degeneracy, a mechanism is needed that combines sub-Doppler…
We consider the practical feasibility of using the direct, electric dipole-dipole interaction between co-trapped molecular ions for robust quantum logic without the need for static polarizing fields. The use of oscillating dipole moments,…
Recent experiments have demonstrated direct cooling and trapping of diatomic and triatomic molecules in magneto-optical traps (MOTs). However, even the best molecular MOTs to date still have density $10^{-5}$ times smaller than in typical…
We analyze the dynamics of a paramagnetic, dipolar molecule in a generic "magneto-electrostatic'' trap where both magnetic and electric fields may be present. The potential energy that governs the dynamics of the molecules is found using a…
Starting from a degenerate Bose gas in a hybrid trap combining a magnetic quadrupole trap and an attractive optical trap resulting from a focused laser beam, we demonstrate the efficient loading of this quantum gas into a shell-shaped trap.…
We present a versatile electric trap for the exploration of a wide range of quantum phenomena in the interaction between polar molecules. The trap combines tunable fields, homogeneous over most of the trap volume, with steep gradient fields…
We present a technical guide to developing a quantum-mechanical system with co-trapped laser-cooled ions and electrons, aiming to utilize this mixed-species system in quantum computing and sensing. We outline a method to control the…
A microstructured array of 1254 electrodes on a substrate has been configured to generate an array of local minima of electric field strength with a periodicity of 120 $\mu$m about 25 $\mu$m above the substrate. By applying sinusoidally…
There is substantial interest in producing samples of ultracold molecules for possible applications in quantum computation, quantum simulation of condensed matter systems, precision measurements, controlled chemistry, and high precision…