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Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics

Slow beams of atomic hydrogen by multistage Zeeman deceleration

S. D. Hogan, A. W. Wiederkehr, M. Andrist, Hansjürg Schmutz, Frédéric Merkt

Published Apr 3, 2008• 33 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Hydrogen atoms seeded in a supersonic expansion of Kr have been decelerated from an initial velocity of 435 m s-1 to 107 m s-1 in a multistage Zeeman decelerator. The operation of the decelerator has been fully quantified by numerical particle trajectory simulations and independent measurements of the velocity distribution by ion time-of-flight mass spectrometry following photoionization of the decelerated atoms. The velocity distributions of the decelerated atom clouds have a half-width at half-maximum of 25 ± 12 m s-1 corresponding to a temperature of ∼30 mK. These velocities and temperatures are sufficiently low that magnetic trapping of the atoms can be envisaged. © 2008 IOP Publishing Ltd.

DOI
10.1088/0953-4075/41/8/081005

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Hydrogen atoms seeded in a supersonic expansion of Kr have been decelerated from an initial velocity of 435 m s-1 to 107 m s-1 in a multistage Zeeman decelerator. The operation of the decelerator has been fully quantified by numerical particle trajectory simulations and independent measurements of the velocity distribution by ion time-of-flight mass spectrometry following photoionization of the decelerated atoms. The velocity distributions of the decelerated atom clouds have a half-width at half-maximum of 25 ± 12 m s-1 corresponding to a temperature of ∼30 mK. These velocities and temperatures are sufficiently low that magnetic trapping of the atoms can be envisaged. © 2008 IOP Publishing Ltd.
A modular multistage Zeeman decelerator consisting of an array of solenoids has been developed to control the velocity of cold, paramagnetic atoms and molecules in supersonic beams. The translational motion these atoms and molecules was manipulated with high precision by exploiting the interaction between their magnetic moments and timedependent inhomogeneous magnetic elds. Deceleration was achieved by pulsing high currents (up to 300 A) through the solenoids of the decelerator with pulse sequences calculated to preserve the phase-space density of the atomic and molecular samples while removing a preset amount of kinetic energy. For the operation of the multistage Zeeman decelerator, solenoids and electronic units were developed to generate strong magneticeld pulses (> 2 T) with rise and fall times of only a few microseconds. An accurate three-dimensional particle-trajectory simulation program has been developed to analyze the deceleration process and optimize its e ciency. This software was thoroughly tested by systematic comparison with experimental results and enabled, in combination with measurements, the complete characterization of the spatial and velocity distributions of the decelerated and trapped atoms for di erent sets of experimental conditions. The program was essential to achieve a complete interpretation of the dynamics of the deceleration process and to devise a strategy to e ciently load the decelerated atoms and molecules into magnetic quadrupole traps. In a rst experiment, hydrogen atoms seeded in a supersonic expansion of Kr have been decelerated from an initial velocity of 435 m/s to nal velocities as low as 107 m/s in a 12-stage Zeeman decelerator. The operation of the decelerator has been analyzed by comparing the results of numerical particle-trajectory simulations with those of independent measurements of the velocity distribution by ion time-ofight mass spectrometry following photoionization of the decelerated atoms. The velocity distribution of the decelerated atom cloud was found to have a half width at half maximum of 25± 12 m/s corresponding to a temperature of ∼ 40 mK. The phase stability of the multistage-Zeeman-deceleration process has been investigated by numerical particle-trajectory simulations and experimental measurements on deuterium atoms in a 24-stage Zeeman decelerator. A one-dimensional analytical model of the phase stability in a multistage Zeeman decelerator was adapted from a one-dimensional model of phase stability in a multistage Stark decelerator and compared with the results of oneand three-dimensional particle-trajectory simulations. The comparison, which included the analysis of the e ects of nite switch-on and switch-o times of the deceleration pulses, revealed that transverse e ects in the decelerator lead to a considerable reduction of the
Hydrogen and deuterium atoms in supersonic jet expansions have been decelerated using a multistage Zeeman decelerator. The properties of the decelerator have been completely characterized in a series of experiments in which (i) the initial longitudinal velocities of the decelerated atoms, (ii) the maximum magnetic field strength, and (iii) the duration of zero-field intervals between successive field pulses in neighboring deceleration stages were systematically varied. Experiments using Ar and Kr as carrier gases have clearly revealed that the H atoms are located at the surface of the jet expansion cone in each case. Comparison of the results of these experiments with numerical simulations of the atom trajectories through the decelerator provides a full description of the phase-space distribution of the decelerated atoms. Evidence is presented of transverse guiding of the beam and of a partial redistribution of the H atom population among the MF{M}_{F}MF​ components of the F=1F=1F=1 manifold at times when the magnetic field strength approaches zero.
A supersonic beam of metastable neon atoms has been decelerated by exploiting the interaction between the magnetic moment of the atoms and time-dependent inhomogeneous magnetic fields in a multistage Zeeman decelerator. Using 91 deceleration solenoids, the atoms were decelerated from an initial velocity of 580m/s to final velocities as low as 105m/s, corresponding to a removal of more than 95% of their initial kinetic energy. The phase-space distribution of the cold, decelerated atoms was characterized by time-of-flight and imaging measurements, from which a temperature of 10mK was obtained in the moving frame of the decelerated sample. In combination with particle-trajectory simulations, these measurements allowed the phase-space acceptance of the decelerator to be quantified. The degree of isotope separation that can be achieved by multistage Zeeman deceleration was also studied by performing experiments with pulse sequences generated for ²⁰Ne and ²²Ne. © 2011 American Institute of Physics.
Argon and hydrogen atoms excited to Rydberg Stark states in supersonic expansions have been decelerated using inhomogeneous electric fields. In the case of hydrogen, the atoms have been decelerated from an initial velocity of 700 m/s to zero velocity in the lab frame using time-dependent inhomogeneous electric fields and subsequently stored in two- and three-dimensional traps. The dynamics of the Rydberg atoms in the traps and the phase-space characteristics of the decelerated atoms have been characterized by pulsed field ionization and imaging techniques. Multi-stage Zeeman deceleration of ground state H and D atoms has been demonstrated. Using this technique H atoms, traveling at 420 m/s, have been decelerated to half of their initial kinetic energy. © 2008 World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.