Related papers: Deceleration and trapping of SrF molecules
Calcium monofluoride (CaF) molecules are loaded into an optical dipole trap (ODT) and subsequently laser cooled within the trap. Starting with magneto-optical trapping, we sub-Doppler cool CaF and then load $150(30)$ CaF molecules into an…
This paper demonstrates cooling of the center-of-mass motion of 10 $\mu$m-diameter optically levitated silica spheres to an effective temperature of $50\pm22 \mu$K, achieved by minimizing the technical pointing noise of the trapping laser.…
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…
Laser cooling and trapping are central to modern atomic physics. The workhorse technique in cold-atom physics is the magneto-optical trap (MOT), which combines laser cooling with a restoring force from radiation pressure. For a variety of…
We here report on the realization of an electrodynamic trap, capable of trapping neutral atoms and molecules in both low-field and high-field seeking states. Confinement in three dimensions is achieved by switching between two electric…
Supersonic beams of hydrogen atoms, prepared selectively in Rydberg-Stark states of principal quantum number $n$ in the range between 25 and 35, have been deflected by 90$^\circ$, decelerated and loaded into off-axis electric traps at…
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…
Stark deceleration allows for precise control over the velocity of a pulsed molecular beam and, by the nature of its limited phase-space acceptance, reduces the energy width of the decelerated packet. We describe an alternate method of…
Trapping ultracold molecules in conservative traps is essential for applications -- such as quantum state-controlled chemistry, quantum simulations, and quantum information processing. These applications require high densities or…
We have focused and decelerated benzonitrile (C$_7$H$_5$N) molecules from a molecular beam, using an array of time-varying inhomogeneous electric fields in alternating gradient configuration. Benzonitrile is prototypical for large…
Since the advent of atom laser-cooling, trapping or cooling natural molecules has been a long standing and challenging goal. Here, we demonstrate a method for laser-trapping molecules that is radically novel in its configuration, in its…
We demonstrate trapping of an ultracold gas of neutral atoms in a macroscopic ac electric trap. Three-dimensional confinement is obtained by switching between two saddle-point configurations of the electric field. Stable trapping is…
We here report on the experimental realization of a microwave decelerator for neutral polar molecules, suitable for decelerating and focusing molecules in high-field-seeking states. The multi-stage decelerator consists of a cylindrical…
We report radiation pressure slowing of YbF molecules to low velocity. In YbF, laser slowing is hindered by leaks out of the optical cycle attributed to low-lying metastable electronic states arising from inner-shell excitation. We bring…
We demonstrate and characterize a cryogenic buffer gas-cooled molecular beam source capable of producing bright beams of free radicals and refractory species. Details of the beam properties (brightness, forward velocity distribution,…
Recent work with laser-cooled molecules in attractive optical traps has shown that the differential AC Stark shifts arising from the trap light itself can become problematic, limiting collisional shielding efficiencies, rotational coherence…
We model sympathetic cooling of ground-state CaF molecules by ultracold Li and Rb atoms. The molecules are moving in a microwave trap, while the atoms are trapped magnetically. We calculate the differential elastic cross sections for CaF-Li…
We report on trapping of fermionic 40K atoms in a red-detuned standing-wave optical trap, loaded from a magneto-optical trap. Typically, 10^6 atoms are loaded at a density of 10^12 cm^-3 and a temperature of 65 microK, and trapped for more…
We demonstrate loading of SrF molecules into an optical dipole trap (ODT) via in-trap $\Lambda$-cooling. We find that this cooling can be optimized by a proper choice of relative ODT and $\Lambda$ beam polarizations. In this optimized…
We report the realization of a blue-detuned magneto-optical trap (BDM) of BaF molecules. The (1 + 1) type BDM and (1 + 2) type conveyor-belt MOT are explored. While the (1+1) BDM provides only weak trapping force, the conveyor-belt MOT…