Related papers: Cold free radical molecules in the laboratory fram…
The Stark deceleration of OH radicals in both low-field-seeking and high-field-seeking levels of the rovibronic ${}^2\Pi_{3/2},v=0,J=3/2$ ground state is demonstrated using a single experimental setup. Applying alternating-gradient…
We consider collisions of electric and magnetic polar molecules, taking the OH radical as an example, subject to combined electric and magnetic static fields. We show that the relative orientation of the fields has an important effect on…
We present an analysis of the deceleration and trapping of heavy diatomic molecules in low-field seeking states by a moving electric potential. This moving potential is created by a 'ring-decelerator', which consists of a series of…
The hydroxyl radical, hereafter referred to as the OH molecule (OHM), carries both electric and magnetic dipole moments and, as a diatomic molecule, admits a comparatively simple and accurate model. This makes it a natural quantum probe for…
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…
Stark deceleration enables the production of cold and dense molecular beams with applications in trapping, collisional studies, and precision measurement. Improving the efficiency of Stark deceleration, and hence the achievable molecular…
We introduce a new optical tool - a "two-dimensional optical centrifuge", capable of aligning molecules in extreme rotational states. Unlike the conventional centrifuge, which confines the molecules in the plane of their rotation, its…
Time-resolved investigations of ultrafast electronic and molecular dynamics were not possible until recently. The typical time scale of these processes is in the picosecond to attosecond realm. The tremendous technological progress in…
We report experiments on field-free molecular alignment performed at FLASH, the free electron laser (FEL) in Hamburg. The impulsive alignment induced by a 100 fs near-infrared laser pulse in a rotationally cold CO_2 sample is characterized…
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…
This article reviews the current state of the art in the field of cold and ultracold molecules and demonstrates that chemical reactions, inelastic collisions and dissociation of molecules at subKelvin temperatures can be manipulated with…
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…
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…
Molecules with their axes sharply confined in space, available through laser-induced alignment methods, are essential for many current experiments, including ultrafast molecular imaging. Most of these applications require both that the…
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 demonstrate feedback control optimization for the Stark deceleration and trapping of neutral polar molecules using evolutionary strategies. In a Stark-decelerator beamline pulsed electric fields are used to decelerate OH radicals and…
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…
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…
Optically trapped laser-cooled polar molecules hold promise for new science and technology in quantum information and quantum simulation. Large numerical aperture optical access and long trap lifetimes are needed for many studies, but these…
Understanding and controlling the electronic as well as ro-vibrational motion and, thus, the entire chemical dynamics in molecules is the ultimate goal of ultrafast laser and imaging science. In photochemistry, laser-induced dissociation…