1D Magneto-Optical Trap of Polyatomic Molecules

Louis Baum; Nathaniel B Vilas; Christian Hallas; Benjamin L Augenbraun; Shivam Raval; Debayan Mitra; John M Doyle

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.133201

1D Magneto-Optical Trap of Polyatomic Molecules

Phys Rev Lett. 2020 Apr 3;124(13):133201. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.133201.

Authors

Louis Baum^{1

2}, Nathaniel B Vilas^{1

2}, Christian Hallas^{1

2}, Benjamin L Augenbraun^{1

2}, Shivam Raval^{1

2}, Debayan Mitra^{1

2}, John M Doyle^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Harvard-MIT Center for Ultracold Atoms, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA.
² Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA.

PMID: 32302203
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.133201

Abstract

We demonstrate a 1D magneto-optical trap of the polar free radical calcium monohydroxide (CaOH). A quasiclosed cycling transition is established to scatter ∼10^{3} photons per molecule, predominantly limited by interaction time. This enables radiative laser cooling of CaOH while compressing the molecular beam, leading to a significant increase in on axis beam brightness and reduction in temperature from 8.4 to 1.4 mK.