Related papers: Prospects for laser cooling of polyatomic molecule…
An optical cycling center (OCC) is a recently coined term to indicate two electronic states within a complex quantum object that can repeatedly experience optical laser excitation and spontaneous decay, while being well isolated from its…
Optical control of polyatomic molecules promises new opportunities in precision metrology, fundamental chemistry, quantum information, and many-body science. Contemporary experimental and theoretical efforts have mostly focused on cycling…
Recent theoretical investigations have indicated that rapid optical cycling should be feasible in complex polyatomic molecules with diverse constituents, geometries and symmetries. However, as a composite molecular mass grows, so does the…
A rational approach to identify polyatomic molecules that appear to be promising candidates for direct Doppler cooling with lasers is outlined. First-principle calculations for equilibrium structures and Franck--Condon factors of selected…
Laser induced electronic excitations that spontaneously emit photons and decay directly to the initial ground state ("optical cycling transitions") are used in quantum information and precision measurement for state initialization and…
Designing closed, laser-induced optical cycling transitions in trapped atoms or molecules is useful for quantum information processing, precision measurement, and quantum sensing. Larger molecules that feature such closed transitions are…
We present a practical roadmap to achieve optical cycling and laser cooling of asymmetric top molecules (ATMs). Our theoretical analysis describes how reduced molecular symmetry, as compared to diatomic and symmetric non-linear molecules,…
Over the past decade, tremendous progress has been made to extend the tools of laser cooling and trapping to molecules. Those same tools have recently been applied to polyatomic molecules (molecules containing three or more atoms). In this…
Rapid and repeated photon cycling has enabled precision metrology and the development of quantum information systems using a variety of atoms and simple molecules. Extending optical cycling to structurally complex molecules would provide…
Polyatomic molecules equipped with optical cycling centers (OCCs), enabling continuous photon scattering during optical excitation, are exciting candidates for advancing quantum information science. However, as these molecules grow in size…
We report on a cycling scheme for Doppler cooling of trapped OH$^+$ ions using transitions between the electronic ground state $X^3\Sigma^-$ and the first excited triplet state $A^3\Pi$. We have identified relevant transitions for photon…
Precision measurements in molecules have advanced rapidly in recent years through developments in techniques to cool, trap, and control. The complexity of molecules makes them a challenge to study, but also offers opportunities for enhanced…
The helium dimer in its metastable triplet state is a promising candidate to be the first laser-cooled homonuclear molecule. An ultracold gas of He$_2^*$ would enable a new generation of precision measurements to test quantum…
The direct laser cooling of neutral diatomic molecules in molecular beams suggests that trapped molecular ions can also be laser cooled. The long storage time and spatial localization of trapped molecular ions provides the opportunity for…
Aluminium monofluoride (AlF) is a promising candidate for laser cooling and trapping at high densities. We show efficient production of AlF in a bright, pulsed cryogenic buffer gas beam, and demonstrate rapid optical cycling on the Q…
We report direct laser cooling of a symmetric top molecule, reducing the transverse temperature of a beam of calcium monomethoxide (CaOCH$_3$) to $1.8\pm0.7$ mK while addressing two distinct nuclear spin isomers. These results open a path…
We examine the prospects for utilizing the optical bichromatic force (BCF) to greatly enhance laser deceleration and cooling for near-cycling transitions in small molecules. We discuss the expected behavior of the BCF in near-cycling…
Laser cooling of atomic motion enables a wide variety of technological and scientific explorations using cold atoms. Here we focus on the effect of laser cooling on the photons instead of on the atoms. Specifically, we show that…
Cooling of molecules via free-space dissipative scattering of photons is thought not to be practicable due to the inherently large number of Raman loss channels available to molecules and the prohibitive expense of building multiple…
Cavity cooling of an atom works best on a cyclic optical transition in the strong coupling regime near resonance, where small cavity photon numbers suffice for trapping and cooling. Due to the absence of closed transitions a straightforward…