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New Journal of Physics

An atomic coilgun: using pulsed magnetic fields to slow a supersonic beam

Edvardas Narevicius, Christian G. Parthey, A. Libson, Julia Narevicius, Isaac Chavez, Uzi Even, Mark G. Raizen

Published Oct 3, 2007• 74 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We report the experimental demonstration of a novel method to slow atoms and molecules with permanent magnetic moments using pulsed magnetic fields. In our experiments, we observe the slowing of a supersonic beam of metastable neon from 461.0 ± 7.7 to 403 ± 16 m s−1 in 18 stages, where the slowed peak is clearly separated from the initial distribution. This method has broad applications as it may easily be generalized, using seeding and entrainment into supersonic beams, to all paramagnetic atoms and molecules.

DOI
10.1088/1367-2630/9/10/358

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We report the experimental demonstration of a novel method to slow atoms and molecules with permanent magnetic moments using pulsed magnetic fields. In our experiments, we observe the slowing of a supersonic beam of metastable neon from 461.0 ± 7.7 to 403 ± 16 m s−1 in 18 stages, where the slowed peak is clearly separated from the initial distribution. This method has broad applications as it may easily be generalized, using seeding and entrainment into supersonic beams, to all paramagnetic atoms and molecules.
Supersonic beams provide a source of cold atoms where laser cooling is not applicable. Although the atoms' temperature in the co-moving frame is in the subkelvin range their velocity is on the order of several hundreds of meters per second. This thesis describes the experimental realization of a novel method to slow atoms and molecules with permanent magnetic moments using pulsed magnetic fields. The method is suitable for most elements since most atomic species are paramagnetic, and can also be applied to certain molecules, as well as electronically excited metastable states and most radicals. We show the slowing of metastable neon in a proof of principle experiment where the mean velocity is reduced from 461.0[plus or minus] 7.7 m/s to 403 [plus or minus]16 m/s in 18 stages. A second setup with 64 stages is now operating and allows us to stop metastable neon in principle. Preliminary results showing slowing from 447[plus or minus]3m/s to 136[plus or minus]5m/s with an efficiency of up to 3.9% are included here, and the slower has been shown to generate atoms as slow as 50 m/s. We find that the slowing efficiency depends strongly on the switching phase. In addition to the experimental results described above, we present simulations of a moving trap which allows trapping and decelerating at the same time.
We present an experimental realization of a moving magnetic trap decelerator, where paramagnetic particles entrained in a cold supersonic beam are decelerated in a co-moving magnetic trap.Our method allows for an efficient slowing down of both paramagnetic atoms and molecules to near stopping velocities.We show that under realistic conditions we will be able to trap and decelerate a large fraction of the initial supersonic beam.We present our first results on deceleration in a moving magnetic trap by bringing metastable neon atoms to near rest.Our estimated phase space volume occupied by decelerated particles at a final velocity of 50 m s -1 shows an improvement of two orders of magnitude as compared to currently available deceleration techniques.Cold chemistry (at temperature of ∼1 K) is a fast developing field with many interesting theoretical predictions yet only a few experiments [1][2][3][4].It has been predicted that in the cold chemistry regime, reactions might proceed through resonance states [5] and both reaction rate and path could be controlled [6] via external magnetic or electrostatic fields.Low-temperature chemistry is not limited to artificially created conditions alone but occurs naturally at the low temperature of interstellar space [7] and the atmospheres of remote planets and moons [8].It is anticipated that cold chemistry will follow the enormous progress in molecular chemistry that was spurred by the advent of supersonic beams more than half a century ago [9].However, the progress in experimental cold chemistry is rather slow partly due to the absence of a general method of atomic and molecular cooling.Although the low-temperature environment created within a supersonic expansion has been used to observe many reactions [10], a direct 1 Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed.
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.