366 research outputs found
Cold SO_2 molecules by Stark deceleration
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
deceleration stages are necessary to bring SO_2 to a complete standstill,
significantly more than in other experiments. We show that in such a
decelerator possible loss due to coupling between the motional degrees of
freedom must be considered. Experimental results are compared with 3D
Monte-Carlo simulations and the quantum state selectivity of the Stark
decelerator is demonstrated.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure
Electrostatic trapping of metastable NH molecules
We report on the Stark deceleration and electrostatic trapping of NH
() radicals. In the trap, the molecules are excited on the
spin-forbidden transition and detected via
their subsequent fluorescence to the ground state. The 1/e
trapping time is 1.4 0.1 s, from which a lower limit of 2.7 s for the
radiative lifetime of the state is deduced. The spectral
profile of the molecules in the trapping field is measured to probe their
spatial distribution. Electrostatic trapping of metastable NH followed by
optical pumping of the trapped molecules to the electronic ground state is an
important step towards accumulation of these radicals in a magnetic trap.Comment: replaced with final version, added journal referenc
Multistage Zeeman deceleration of atomic and molecular oxygen
Multistage Zeeman deceleration is a technique used to reduce the velocity of
neutral molecules with a magnetic dipole moment. Here we present a Zeeman
decelerator that consists of 100 solenoids and 100 magnetic hexapoles, that is
based on a short prototype design presented recently [Phys. Rev. A 95, 043415
(2017)]. The decelerator features a modular design with excellent thermal and
vacuum properties, and is robustly operated at a 10 Hz repetition rate. This
multistage Zeeman decelerator is particularly optimized to produce molecular
beams for applications in crossed beam molecular scattering experiments. We
characterize the decelerator using beams of atomic and molecular oxygen. For
atomic oxygen, the magnetic fields produced by the solenoids are used to tune
the final longitudinal velocity in the 500 - 125 m/s range, while for molecular
oxygen the velocity is tunable in the 350 - 150 m/s range. This corresponds to
a maximum kinetic energy reduction of 95% and 80% for atomic and molecular
oxygen, respectively.Comment: Latest version as accepted by Physical Review
Deceleration and electrostatic trapping of OH radicals
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 via laser induced fluorescence detection inside
the quadrupole trap. Depending on details of the trap loading sequence,
typically OH () radicals are trapped at a density
of around cm and at temperatures in the 50-500 mK range. The 1/e
trap lifetime is around 1.0 second.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Direct measurement of the radiative lifetime of vibrationally excited OH radicals
Neutral molecules, isolated in the gas-phase, can be prepared in a long-lived
excited state and stored in a trap. The long observation time afforded by the
trap can then be exploited to measure the radiative lifetime of this state by
monitoring the temporal decay of the population in the trap. This method is
demonstrated here and used to benchmark the Einstein -coefficients in the
Meinel system of OH. A pulsed beam of vibrationally excited OH radicals is
Stark decelerated and loaded into an electrostatic quadrupole trap. The
radiative lifetime of the upper -doublet component of the level is determined as ms, in good
agreement with the calculated value of ms.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let
Stark deceleration of CaF molecules in strong- and weak-field seeking states
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 weak-field seekers, and an alternating gradient decelerator for the
strong-field seekers, and we compare their relative merits. We also consider
the application of laser cooling to increase the phase-space density of
decelerated molecules.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figure
Production and deceleration of a pulsed beam of metastable NH () radicals
We report on the production of a pulsed molecular beam of metastable NH () radicals and present first results on the Stark deceleration of the
NH () radicals from 550 m/s to 330 m/s. The
decelerated molecules are excited on the spin-forbidden transition, and detected via their subsequent spontaneous
fluorescence to the ground-state. These experiments
demonstrate the feasibility of our recently proposed scheme [Phys. Rev. A 64
(2001) 041401] to accumulate ground-state NH radicals in a magnetic trap.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, v2: fixed author name for web-abstract, no
changes to manuscrip
Nonadiabatic transitions in a Stark decelerator
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 field adiabatically. When the decelerator switches from one
configuration to the other, the electric field changes in magnitude and
direction, and this can cause molecules to change state. In places where the
field is weak, the rotation of the electric field vector during the switch may
be too rapid for the molecules to maintain their orientation relative to the
field. Molecules that are at these places when the field switches may be lost
from the decelerator as they are transferred into states that are not focussed.
We calculate the probability of nonadiabatic transitions as a function of
position in the periodic decelerator structure and find that for the
decelerated group of molecules the loss is typically small, while for the
un-decelerated group of molecules the loss can be very high. This loss can be
eliminated using a bias field to ensure that the electric field magnitude is
always large enough. We demonstrate our findings by comparing the results of
experiments and simulations for the Stark deceleration of LiH and CaF
molecules. We present a simple method for calculating the transition
probabilities which can easily be applied to other molecules of interest.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures, minor revisions following referee suggestion
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