Related papers: High-resolution optical spectroscopy with a buffer…
Laser cycling of resonances can remove entropy from a system via spontaneously emitted photons, with electronic resonances providing the fastest cooling timescales because of their rapid relaxation rates. Although atoms are routinely laser…
Cryogenic buffer gas beams are central to many cold molecule experiments. Here, we use absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy to directly compare molecular beams of AlF, CaF, MgF, and YbF molecules, produced by chemical reaction of laser…
Molecular predissociation is the spontaneous, nonradiative bond breaking process that can occur upon excitation. In the context of laser cooling, predissociation is an unwanted consequence of molecular structure that limits the ability to…
We demonstrate the coherent optical bichromatic force on a molecule, the polar free radical strontium monohydroxide (SrOH). A dual-frequency retro-reflected laser beam addressing the $\tilde{X}^2\Sigma^+\leftrightarrow\tilde{A}^2\Pi_{1/2}$…
We present first results on our implementation of a laser based accelerator for ultracold atoms. Atoms cooled to a temperature of 420 nK are confined and accelerated by means of laser tweezer beams and the atomic scattering is directly…
The quantum mechanical nature of spherical top molecules is particularly evident at low angular momentum quantum number J. Using infrared spectroscopy on the 8.4$\mu$m rovibrational band of buffer gas cooled $^{12}$C$_{60}$, we observe the…
Intense beams of cold and slow molecules are produced by supersonic expansion out of a rapidly rotating nozzle, as first demonstrated by Gupta and Herschbach. An improved setup is presented that allows to accelerate or decelerate cold…
We report optical trapping of laser-cooled molecules at sufficient density to observe molecule-molecule collisions for the first time in a bulk gas. SrF molecules from a red-detuned magneto-optical trap (MOT) are compressed and cooled in a…
We demonstrate the production of ultracold polar RbCs molecules in their vibronic ground state, via photoassociation of laser-cooled atoms followed by a laser-stimulated state transfer process. The resulting sample of $X ^1\Sigma^+ (v=0)$…
Attempts to create quantum degenerate gases without evaporative cooling have been pursued since the early days of laser cooling, with the consensus that polarization gradient cooling (PGC, also known as "optical molasses") alone cannot…
Cubic boron arsenide (BAs) is an emerging semiconductor material with a record-high thermal conductivity of 1300 W/mK. However, many fundamental properties of BAs remain unexplored experimentally. Here, for the first time, we report the…
We present a method which delivers a continuous, high-density beam of slow and internally cold polar molecules. In our source, warm molecules are first cooled by collisions with a cryogenic helium buffer gas. Cold molecules are then…
An electrostatic hexapole lens is used to manipulate the transverse properties of a beam of barium fluoride molecules from a cryogenic buffer gas source. The spatial distribution of the beam is measured by recording state-selective…
We describe a compact and versatile multi-frequency laser system for laser-cooling potassium atoms, by frequency doubling a fiber-optic telecom beam ($\simeq 1534$ or $1540$~nm). Low-power fiber-based telecom lasers and components generate…
Single molecules trapped in the solid state at liquid helium temperatures are promising quantum emitters for the development of quantum technologies owing to their remarkable photostability and their lifetime-limited optical coherence time…
Quantum optics has been a major driving force behind the rapid experimental developments that have led from the first laser cooling schemes to the Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of dilute atomic and molecular gases. Not only has it…
We present an all-optical method for achieving molecular Bose-Einstein condensates of ${}^6\textrm{Li}$. We demonstrate this with mixtures in the lowest two (1-2), and second lowest two (2-3) hyperfine states. For the 1-2 mixture, we can…
We present a method for producing three-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensates using only laser cooling. The phase transition to condensation is crossed with $2.5 {\times} 10^{4}$ $^{87}\mathrm{Rb}$ atoms at a temperature of $T_{\mathrm{c}}…
Cubic boron arsenide (BAs) is promising for microelectronics thermal management due to its high thermal conductivity. Recently, its potential as an optoelectronic material is also being explored. However, it remains challenging to measure…
Orbital angular momentum (OAM) light beams for high-order harmonic generation (HHG) provide an additional degree of freedom to study the light-matter interaction at ultrafast timescales. A more sophisticated configuration is a perfect…