Related papers: Optical pumping of trapped neutral molecules by bl…
We demonstrate the long-term ($<$ 1 minute) trapping of Stark-decelerated OH radicals in their $X~^{2}\Pi _{3/2}~(\nu = 0,~J = 3/2,~M_{J} = 3/2,~f)$ state in a permanent magnetic trap. The trap environment was cryogenically cooled to a…
A pulsed beam of ground state OH radicals is slowed down using a Stark decelerator and is subsequently loaded into an electrostatic trap. Characterization of the molecular beam production, deceleration and trap loading process is performed…
We study the internal state dynamics of optically trapped polyatomic molecules subject to room temperature blackbody radiation. Using rate equations that account for radiative decay and blackbody excitation between rovibrational levels of…
We report optical trapping of a polyatomic molecule, calcium monohydroxide (CaOH). CaOH molecules from a magneto-optical trap are sub-Doppler laser cooled to $20(3)~\mu\text{K}$ in free space and loaded into an optical dipole trap. We…
Optical pumping of an optically thick atomic vapor typically requires a quenching buffer gas, such as N$_{2}$, to prevent radiation trapping of unpolarized photons which would depolarize the atoms. We show that optical pumping of a trace…
A near-minimal instance of optical cooling is experimentally presented wherein the internal-state entropy of a single atom is reduced more than twofold by illuminating it with broadband, incoherent light. Since the rate of optical pumping…
Resonant optical pumping in dense atomic media is discussed, where the absorption length is less than the smallest characteristic dimension of the sample. It is shown that reabsorption and multiple scattering of spontaneous photons…
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…
In the perspective of the outstanding developments of high-precision measurements of fundamental constants using polar molecules related to ultimate checks of fundamental theories, we investigate the possibly counterproductive role of…
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 describe an atom trapping mechanism based upon differential optical pumping between metastable hyperfine states by partially-displaced laser beams in the absence of a magnetic field. With realistic laser powers, trap spring constants…
We describe an approach to optically trapping small, chemically stable molecules at cryogenic temperatures by buffer-gas loading a deep optical dipole trap. The ~10 K trap depth will be produced by a tightly-focused, 1064-nm cavity capable…
Calcium monofluoride (CaF) is magnetically slowed and trapped using optical pumping. Starting from a collisionally cooled slow beam, CaF with an initial velocity of ~ 30 m/s is slowed via magnetic forces as it enters a 800 mK deep magnetic…
The precise control and knowledge over the atomic dynamics is central to the advancement of quantum technology. The different experimental conditions namely, atoms in a vacuum, an anti-relaxation coated and a buffer gas filled atomic cell…
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 demonstrate efficient transfer of ultracold molecules into a deeply bound rovibrational level of the singlet ground state potential in the presence of an optical lattice. The overall molecule creation efficiency is 25%, and the transfer…
We report an optical dipole trap of strontium monohydroxide (SrOH) with 1400(300) trapped molecules. Through optical pumping, we access vibrational states that are proposed for improved probes of the electron's electric dipole moment (eEDM)…
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…
For several decades, ions have been trapped by radio frequency (RF) and neutral particles by optical fields. We implement the experimental proof-of-principle for trapping an ion in an optical dipole trap. While loading, initialization and…
Radiation pressure forces in a focussed laser beam can be used to trap microscopic absorbing particles against a substrate. Calculations based on momentum transfer considerations show that stable trapping occurs before the beam waist, and…