Related papers: Beyond the Limits of Conventional Stark Decelerati…
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…
Beams of polar molecules can be focused using an array of electrostatic lenses in alternating gradient (AG) configuration. They can also be accelerated or decelerated by applying an appropriate high voltage switching sequence to the lenses.…
In this paper we describe the high-voltage generation system we have developed for a traveling-wave Stark decelerator (TWSD). The TWSD can reduce the forward velocity of a molecular beam of heavy neutral polar molecules such as strontium…
We report on the deceleration of a beam of SrF molecules from 290 to 120~m/s. Following supersonic expansion, the molecules in the $X^2\Sigma$ ($v=0$, $N=1$) low-field seeking states are trapped by the moving potential wells of a…
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 demonstrate experimentally the guiding of cold and slow ND3 molecules along a thin charged wire over a distance of ~0.34 m through an entire molecular beam apparatus. Trajectory simulations confirm that both linear and quadratic…
We present an experimental realization of a moving magnetic trap decelerator, where paramagnetic particles entrained in a cold supersonic beam are decelerated in a co-moving magnetic trap. Our method allows for an efficient slowing of both…
We describe the production of cold, slow-moving LiH molecules. The molecules are produced in the ground state using laser ablation and supersonic expansion, and 68% of the population is transferred to the rotationally excited state using…
We report on the Stark deceleration of a pulsed molecular beam of NO radicals. Stark deceleration of this chemically important species has long been considered unfeasible due to its small electric dipole moment of 0.16 D. We prepared the NO…
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…
We report the Stark deceleration of CaF molecules in the strong-field seeking ground state and in a weak-field seeking component of a rotationally-excited state. We use two types of decelerator, a conventional Stark decelerator for the…
In a Stark decelerator, polar molecules are slowed down and focussed by an inhomogeneous electric field which switches between two configurations. For the decelerator to work, it is essential that the molecules follow the changing electric…
We propose a scheme to transfer molecules from a slow beam into an optical trap using only a single photon absorption and emission cycle. The efficiency of such a scheme is numerically explored for BaF using realistic experimental…
A special class of molecules that are important to many subfields in molecular dynamics and chemical physics, namely free radical molecules, now enjoy a significant degree of center-of-mass motion control in the laboratory frame. The…
Cold supersonic beams of molecules can be slowed down using a switched sequence of electrostatic field gradients. The energy to be removed is proportional to the mass of the molecules. Here we report deceleration of YbF, which is 7 times…
Recently, laser cooling methods have been extended from atoms to molecules. The complex rotational and vibrational energy level structure of molecules makes laser cooling difficult, but these difficulties have been overcome and molecules…
Driven barrier crossings are pervasive in optical-trapping experiments and steered molecular-dynamics simulations. Despite the high fidelity of control, the freedom in the choice of driving protocol is rarely exploited to improve…
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…
Polar heavy-atom molecules have been well recognized as promising candidates for precision measurements and tests of fundamental physics. A much slower molecular beam to increase the interaction time should lead to a more sensitive…
We produce SO_2 molecules with a centre of mass velocity near zero using a Stark decelerator. Since the initial kinetic energy of the supersonic SO_2 molecular beam is high, and the removed kinetic energy per stage is small, 326…