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Physical Review Letters

Trapping Neutral Molecules in a Traveling Potential Well

Hendrick L. Bethlem, Giel Berden, André J. A. van Roij, Floris M. H. Crompvoets, Gerard Meijer

Published Jun 19, 2000• 152 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A series of pulsed electric fields can be arranged such that it creates a traveling potential well in which neutral dipolar molecules can be confined. This provides a method to transport, to decelerate, and to cool a sample of neutral molecules while maintaining the initial phase-space density. This method is described using the concept of phase stability. The oscillating motion of molecules in the traveling potential well, reaching a minimum velocity spread corresponding to a translational temperature of 4 mK, is experimentally observed.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.84.5744

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A series of pulsed electric fields can be arranged such that it creates a traveling potential well in which neutral dipolar molecules can be confined. This provides a method to transport, to decelerate, and to cool a sample of neutral molecules while maintaining the initial phase-space density. This method is described using the concept of phase stability. The oscillating motion of molecules in the traveling potential well, reaching a minimum velocity spread corresponding to a translational temperature of 4 mK, is experimentally observed.
A decelerator is presented where polar neutral molecules are guided and decelerated using the principle of traveling electric potential wells, such that molecules are confined in stable three-dimensional traps throughout. We compare this decelerator with that of Scharfenberg et al. [Phys. Rev. A 79, 023410 (2009)] and we show that the current decelerator provides a substantially larger phase-space acceptance, even at higher acceleration. The mode of operation is described and experimentally demonstrated by guiding and decelerating CO molecules.
A polar molecule experiences a force in an inhomogeneous electric field. Using this force, neutral molecules can be decelerated and trapped. It is shown here that this can in principle be done without loss in phase-space density. Using a series of 64 pulsed inhomogeneous electric fields a supersonic beam of ammonia molecules (14NH3,{(}^{14}{\mathrm{NH}}_{3},(14NH3​, 14ND3,{}^{14}{\mathrm{ND}}_{3},14ND3​, 15ND3){}^{15}{\mathrm{ND}}_{3})15ND3​) is decelerated. Subsequently, the decelerated molecules are loaded into an electrostatic quadrupole trap. Densities on the order of 107molecules/cm3{10}^{7} {\mathrm{m}\mathrm{o}\mathrm{l}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{c}\mathrm{u}\mathrm{l}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{s}/\mathrm{c}\mathrm{m}}^{3}107molecules/cm3 at a temperature of 25 mK are obtained for 14ND3{}^{14}{\mathrm{ND}}_{3}14ND3​ and 15ND3{}^{15}{\mathrm{ND}}_{3}15ND3​ separately and simultaneously. This corresponds to a phase-space density in the trap of $2\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}13},$ 50 times less than the initial phase-space density in the beam.
We report on the electrostatic trapping of neutral SrF molecules. The molecules are captured from a cryogenic buffer-gas beam source into the moving traps of a 4.5-m-long traveling-wave Stark decelerator. The SrF molecules in X^{2}Σ^{+}(v=0,N=1) state are brought to rest as the velocity of the moving traps is gradually reduced from 190 m/s to zero. The molecules are held for up to 50 ms in multiple electric traps of the decelerator. The trapped packets have a volume (FWHM) of 1 mm^{3} and a velocity spread of 5(1) m/s, which corresponds to a temperature of 60(20) mK. Our result demonstrates a factor 3 increase in the molecular mass that has been Stark decelerated and trapped. Heavy molecules (mass>100 amu) offer a highly increased sensitivity to probe physics beyond the standard model. This work significantly extends the species of neutral molecules of which slow beams can be created for collision studies, precision measurement, and trapping experiments.
Inspired by the spectacular successes in the field of cold atoms, there is currently great interest in cold molecules. Cooling molecules is useful for various fundamental physics studies and gives access to an exotic regime in chemistry where the wave property of the molecules becomes important. Although cooling molecules has turned out to be considerably more difficult than cooling atoms, a number of methods to produce samples of cold molecules have been demonstrated over the last few years. This paper aims to review the application of cold molecules and the methods to produce them. Emphasis is put on the deceleration of polar molecules using time-varying electric fields. The operation principle of the array of electrodes that is used to decelerate polar molecules is described in analogy with, and using terminology from, charged-particle accelerators. It is shown that, by applying an appropriately timed high voltage burst, molecules can be decelerated while the phase-space density, i.e. the number of molecules per position-velocity interval, remains constant. In this way the high density and low temperature in the moving frame of a pulsed molecular beam can be transferred to the laboratory frame. Experiments on metastable CO in states that are either repelled by or attracted to high electric fields are presented. Loading of slow molecules into traps and storage rings is discussed.
We present experiments on decelerating and trapping ammonia molecules using a combination of a Stark decelerator and a traveling wave decelerator. In the traveling wave decelerator, a moving potential is created by a series of ring-shaped electrodes to which oscillating high voltages (HV) are applied. By lowering the frequency of the applied voltages, the molecules confined in the moving trap are decelerated and brought to a standstill. As the molecules are confined in a true 3D well, this kind of deceleration has practically no losses, resulting in a great improvement on the usual Stark deceleration techniques. The necessary voltages are generated by amplifying the output of an arbitrary wave generator using fast HV amplifiers, giving us great control over the trapped molecules. We illustrate this by experiments in which we adiabatically cool trapped NH3 and ND3 molecules and resonantly excite their motion.
The large electric dipole moments associated with highly excited Rydberg states of atoms and molecules make gas-phase samples in these states very well suited to deceleration and trapping using inhomogeneous electric fields. The methods of Rydberg-Stark deceleration with which this can be achieved are reviewed here. Using these techniques, the longitudinal motion of beams of atoms and molecules moving at speeds as high as 2500 m/s have been manipulated, with changes in kinetic energy of up to |Δ E kin|=1.3×10−20 J (|Δ E kin|/e=80 meV or |Δ E kin|/h c=650 cm −1) achieved, while decelerated and trapped samples with number densities of 106– 107 cm −3 and translational temperatures of ∼150 mK have been prepared. Applications of these samples in areas of research at the interface between physics and physical chemistry are discussed.