Related papers: Protocol for Optically Pumping AlH$^+$ to a Pure Q…
We consider the use of pulse-shaped broadband femtosecond lasers to optically cool rotational and vibrational degrees of freedom of molecules. Since this approach relies on cooling rotational and vibrational quanta by exciting an electronic…
We propose an improved photoassociation scheme to produce ultracold molecules in their vibronic ground state for the generic case where non-adiabatic effects facilitating transfer to deeply bound levels are absent. Formation of molecules is…
We have recently demonstrated that optical pumping methods combined with photoassociation of ultra-cold atoms can produce ultra-cold and dense samples of molecules in their absolute rovibronic ground state. More generally, both the external…
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…
We present a novel optical cooling scheme that relies on hyperfine dark states to enhance loading and cooling atoms inside deep optical dipole traps. We demonstrate a seven-fold increase in the number of atoms loaded in the conservative…
We experimentally demonstrate an optical pumping technique to pump a dilute rubidium vapor into the mF = 0 ground states. The technique utilizes selection rules that forbid the excitation of the mF = 0 state by linearly-polarized light. A…
We propose methods of optical pumping that are applicable to open, high-angular-momentum transitions in atoms and molecules, for which conventional optical pumping would lead to significant population loss. Instead of applying circularly…
Ultracold molecules offer entirely new possibilities for the control of quantum processes due to their rich internal structure. Recently, near quantum degenerate gases of molecules have been prepared in their rovibronic ground state. For…
We present an all-optical method for efficiently preparing cold atoms in a desired Zeeman state, either on the magnetically insensitive clock state (m_F=0) or a particular state suitable for processing or storing quantum information. By…
A new optical pumping scheme is presented that uses incoherent Raman transitions to prepare a trapped Cesium atom in a specific Zeeman state within the 6S_{1/2}, F=3 hyperfine manifold. An important advantage of this scheme over existing…
In this work we investigate the theory for three different uni-directional population transfer schemes in trapped multilevel systems which can be utilized to cool molecular ions. The approach we use exploits the laser-induced coupling…
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…
We demonstrate rotational and vibrational cooling of cesium dimers by optical pumping techniques. We use two laser sources exciting all the populated rovibrational states, except a target state that thus behaves like a dark state where…
For precision atomic magnetometry, inert buffer gas is included in alkali-metal vapor cells to significantly broaden hyperfine transitions, which facilitates optical pumping and reduces diffusive relaxation, while also providing…
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…
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…
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…
Optical pumping is fundamental to high-precision measurement using thermal alkali-metal atoms in vapor cells. In applications such as atomic magnetometry, buffer gases (e.g., $\mathrm{N}_2$ or $\mathrm{He}$) at specific pressures are…
Improved optical control of molecular quantum states promises new applications including chemistry in the quantum regime, precision tests of fundamental physics, and quantum information processing. While much work has sought to prepare…
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…