Related papers: Femtosecond pulses and dynamics of molecular photo…
We experimentally investigate various processes present in the photoassociative interaction of an ultracold atomic sample with shaped femtosecond laser pulses. We demonstrate the photoassociation of pairs of rubidium atoms into…
The formation of ultracold metastable RbCs molecules is observed in a double species magneto-optical trap through photoassociation below the ^85Rb(5S_1/2)+^133Cs(6P_3/2) dissociation limit followed by spontaneous emission. The molecules are…
We introduce and experimentally demonstrate a method, where the two intrinsic time scales of a molecule, the slow nuclear motion and the fast electronic motion, are simultaneously measured in a photo-electron photo-ion coincidence…
We report on coherent control of excitation processes of translationally ultracold rubidium dimers in a magneto-optical trap by using shaped femtosecond laser pulses. Evolution strategies are applied in a feedback loop in order to optimize…
We analyze the formation of Rb_2 molecules with short photoassociation pulses applied to a cold Rb-85 sample. A pump laser pulse couples a continuum level of the ground electronic state X ^1\Sigma_{g}^+ with bound levels in the 0_{u}^+…
Photoassociation of ultracold rubidium atoms with femtosecond laser pulses is studied theoretically. The spectrum of the pulses is cut off in order to suppress pulse amplitude at and close to the atomic resonance frequency. This leads to…
Some of us have recently reported in Science 321 232 (2008) vibrational cooling of translationally cold Cs_2 molecules into the lowest vibrational level v=0 of the singlet X 1Sigma_g ground electronic state. Starting from a sample of cold…
Photoassociation with short laser pulses has been proposed as a technique to create ultracold ground state molecules. A broad-band excitation seems the natural choice to drive the series of excitation and deexcitation steps required to form…
Understanding and controlling the electronic as well as ro-vibrational motion and, thus, the entire chemical dynamics in molecules is the ultimate goal of ultrafast laser and imaging science. In photochemistry, laser-induced dissociation…
We show that a single femtosecond optical frequency comb may be used to induce two-photon transitions between molecular vibrational levels to form ultracold molecules, e.g., KRb. The phase across an individual pulse in the pulse train is…
We describe novel optical switching schemes operating at femtosecond time scales by employing free carrier (FC) excitation. Such unprecedented switching times are made possible by spatially patterning the density of the excited FCs. In the…
We propose a broadband, femtosecond two-photon excitation scheme for efficient population transfer to the ultra-narrow linewidth $1s2s\ ^1S_0$ metastable state in helium. Using $120$ nm vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) femtosecond laser pulses, we…
Molecular laser cooling and trapping requires addressing all spontaneous decays to excited vibrational states that occur at the $\gtrsim 10^{-4} - 10^{-5}$ level, which is accomplished by driving repumping transitions out of these states.…
Excited-state vibrations are crucial for determining photophysical and photochemical properties of molecular compounds. Stimulated Raman scattering can coherently stimulate and probe molecular vibrations with optical pulses, but it is…
We have produced ultracold, polar RbCs* molecules via photoassociation in a laser-cooled mixture of Rb and Cs atoms. Using a model of the RbCs* molecular interaction which reproduces the observed rovibrational structure, we infer decay…
Femtosecond (fs)-resolved photoemission electron micrographs of single and few-layer MoSe$_2$ track exciton dynamics in this model 2D quantum material system with joint nanometer (nm)-fs resolution. We illustrate the latter using two-photon…
A quasi-classical model (QCM) of molecular dynamics in intense femtosecond laser fields has been developed, and applied to a study of the effect of an ultrashort `control' pulse on the vibrational motion of a deuterium molecular ion in its…
We study the formation of the RbCs molecule by an intense laser pulse using nonlinear dynamics. Under the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, the system is modeled by a two degree of freedom rovibrational Hamiltonian, which includes the ground…
We demonstrate that a near-dissociation photoassociation resonance can be used to create a deeply bound molecular sample of ultracold NaCs. To probe the resulting vibrational distribution of the sample, we use a new technique that can be…
The methods producing cold molecules from cold atoms tend to leave molecular ensembles with substantial residual internal energy. For instance, Cs2 molecules initially formed via photoassociation of cold Cs atoms are in several vibrational…