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Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics

Optical Stark deceleration of nitric oxide and benzene molecules using optical lattices

R. C. Fulton, Alexis I. Bishop, Mikhail N. Shneider, P. F. Barker

Published Sep 25, 2006• 21 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We describe the deceleration of nitric oxide, benzene and xenon atoms in a molecular beam using one-dimensional pulsed optical lattices created by fields with intensities in the 1012 W cm−2 range. We show that for the same pulse duration and lattice intensity the velocity of the molecules can be controlled by tailoring the lattice velocity. By utilizing the time-dependent oscillatory motion of the molecules within the lattice, we demonstrate the deceleration of nitric oxide from an initial velocity of 400 m s−1 to a final velocity of 290 m s−1 in a single 5.8 ns pulse. Using higher intensities, we measure the deceleration of benzene molecules from 380 m s−1 to 191 m s−1, representing a 75% reduction in the kinetic energy within the lattice over the same duration.

DOI
10.1088/0953-4075/39/19/s20

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Acta Physica Sinica•Jan 1, 2018•0 citations
We describe the deceleration of nitric oxide, benzene and xenon atoms in a molecular beam using one-dimensional pulsed optical lattices created by fields with intensities in the 1012 W cm−2 range. We show that for the same pulse duration and lattice intensity the velocity of the molecules can be controlled by tailoring the lattice velocity. By utilizing the time-dependent oscillatory motion of the molecules within the lattice, we demonstrate the deceleration of nitric oxide from an initial velocity of 400 m s−1 to a final velocity of 290 m s−1 in a single 5.8 ns pulse. Using higher intensities, we measure the deceleration of benzene molecules from 380 m s−1 to 191 m s−1, representing a 75% reduction in the kinetic energy within the lattice over the same duration.
We demonstrate a single stage optical Stark decelerator for neutral molecules which is capable of reducing the translational energy of benzene molecules within a molecular beam by 15% in a single pulsed Gaussian optical field of 15 ns duration. The change in velocity induced by the optical potential is measured by the change in the time of flight of benzene molecules ionized by a second optical field after the slowing field is turned off. A maximum reduction in the velocity of 25 m/s was measured using a single Gaussian beam with a peak intensity of 1.6 x 10(12) W/cm(2) corresponding to a maximum well depth of 253 K.
The deceleration of molecules from cold molecular beams using electric and magnetic fields has become an important means for producing stationary, cold dipolar or paramagnetic molecular gases that can be trapped and potentially cooled to ultra-cold temperatures in the μK range. We report on a general scheme for the creation of cold molecules of essentially any type by deceleration of a cold molecular beam using intense optical fields. Deceleration of benzene molecules to zero velocity is achieved by utilizing a single half oscillation of the center-of-mass motion of the molecules within a moving optical lattice. The lattice traveling at half the speed of the molecular beam is created by the interference of two near-counter-propagating fields at different frequencies. We show that by rapidly switching on the optical lattice for approximately the time required for a half oscillation, a bunch of approximately 10 5 benzene molecules can be rapidly decelerated and brought to rest in the laboratory frame.
This work presents the proposed schemes for decelerating cold molecules created in pulsed supersonic expansions using pulsed optical lattices. The first scheme relies on the application of a decelerating optical lattice with a dipole-potential well depth of approximately 1 K, created by rapidly chirping medium-intensity fields in the 10 W/cm/sup 2/ range. This scheme is an optical analog of the Start decelerator that has been successfully used to slow a range of polar molecules. A significant fraction (about 10%) of the very heavy I/sub 2 /molecules in an Ar buffer gas is shown to be slowed by using this method over sub-microsecond time scales. In the second technique, an optical lattice with larger well depth in the 100 K range travelling at half the supersonic beam velocity is used to trap a significant fraction of the cold, high-velocity molecules. This technique is developed based on the property of periodic motion of the trapped molecules in the optical lattice; the molecules reverse their initial (relative) velocities in the lattice reference frame after half a period. Using this method the cold molecules can be transferred from high speed to zero velocity on nanosecond time scales. As an example, 33% of a CO molecule beam (1 K) with a velocity of 230 m/s is slowed utilising optical intensities of less than 10/sup 12/ W/cm/sup 2/.
Analysis of the trapped and untrapped motion of particles, combined with direct numerical simulation of the 1D non-stationary Boltzmann equation, demonstrates that atoms and molecules initially at room temperature can be accelerated to velocities in the 10 to 100 km/s range over distances of 100's microns using an optical lattice. The quantity, final velocity, and velocity/energy spread of the accelerated distribution controlled by tailoring the fluence, duration and frequency chirp of the laser beam that make the lattice, indicating the potential for a compact, versatile, and configurable hyper-thermal accelerator/decelerator. Using similar lattice potentials, differential transport of atomic and molecular species with different polarizability/mass ratios leads towards the possibility of gas mixture separation in short pulses or in hollow fibers. A bulk drift can be induced in a gas by the lattice forces, even when the mean kinetic energy is much greater that the maximum dipole potential of the optical field. In this process the transfer of energy from the slowly traveling optical lattice to the gas is analogous to Landau damping of a plasma wave by charged particles.
According to the optical Stark deceleration theory of using a stationary quasi-cw red-detuned optical lattice to slow and trap an arbitrary pulsed molecular beam, we propose a novel idea of using a modulated optical lattice instead of a stationary one to realize a multistage optical Stark deceleration. We analyze the motion of the decelerated molecules inside the optical decelerator, and study the dependence of the velocity of the decelerated molecular packet on the synchronous phase angle and the number of the deceleration stages (i.e. half the number of the optical-lattice cells) by using the Monte-Carlo method. The simulation results show that it takes longer time for the molecules to reach the detector as the number of the deceleration stages increases. The decelerated molecular wave packets are gradually separated from the large wave packets of the original molecular velocity distribution. And the higher the number of the deceleration stages, the lower the decelerated molecular speed is. In addition, we also study the influence of the initial phase angle of synchronous molecules under the same conditions. It is demonstrated that the higher the initial phase angle of synchronous molecules, the lower the decelerated molecular speed is and the smaller the number of molecules in the deceleration wave packet, so the phase space is compressed. The result also shows that the modulated optical Stark decelerator does not have the process of molecular free flight, and thus improving the efficiency of deceleration for molecules. The ultra-cold molecules can be trapped in the optical lattice by rapidly turning off the modulation signal of the lattice. Comparing with the previous scheme, the doubled number of the deceleration stages is reached in the same optical lattice length since a modulated optical lattice is used. For a length of optical lattice of 3.71 mm, theoretical simulation results demonstrate that the speed of methane molecules is decelerated from 280 m/s to 172 m/s. Comparing with the previous results from 280 m/s to 232 m/s, the deceleration effect is improved by 26%. Our scheme can not only obtain an ultra-colder molecular packet under the same molecular-beam parameters and deceleration conditions, but also be directly used to trap the slowed cold molecules after the deceleration without needing to use other techniques for molecular trapping.