Magnetic trapping of molecules via optical loading and magnetic slowing

Hsin-I Lu; Ivan Kozyryev; Boerge Hemmerling; Julia Piskorski; John M Doyle

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.113006

Magnetic trapping of molecules via optical loading and magnetic slowing

Phys Rev Lett. 2014 Mar 21;112(11):113006. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.113006. Epub 2014 Mar 20.

Authors

Hsin-I Lu¹, Ivan Kozyryev², Boerge Hemmerling², Julia Piskorski², John M Doyle²

Affiliations

¹ School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA and Harvard-MIT Center for Ultracold Atoms, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA.
² Harvard-MIT Center for Ultracold Atoms, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA and Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA.

PMID: 24702363
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.113006

Abstract

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 trap. Employing two-stage optical pumping, CaF is irreversibly loaded into the trap via two scattered photons. We observe a trap lifetime exceeding 500 ms limited by background collisions. This method paves the way for cooling and magnetic trapping of chemically diverse molecules without closed cycling transitions.