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Chinese Journal of Quantum Electronics

Manipulation and control of cold neutral molecules and its recent progress

Yin Jian-Ping

Published Jan 1, 2006• 0 citations
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Abstract

The basic concepts and principles, experimental schemes and results as well as recent progress of manipulation and control of cold neutral molecules and their geometric molecule-optical devices in the world are introduced. These contents mainly include: electrostatic guide of cold polar molecules and its molecular pipe, laser deflection (refraction) of neutral molecules and its molecular prism, laser focusing of neutral molecules and its molecular lens, electrostatic and magnetic reflection of neutral molecules and its molecular mirror, and laser rotation manipulation of cold molecules and its optical centrifuge, and so on.

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The basic concepts and principles, experimental schemes and results as well as recent progress of manipulation and control of cold neutral molecules and their geometric molecule-optical devices in the world are introduced. These contents mainly include: electrostatic guide of cold polar molecules and its molecular pipe, laser deflection (refraction) of neutral molecules and its molecular prism, laser focusing of neutral molecules and its molecular lens, electrostatic and magnetic reflection of neutral molecules and its molecular mirror, and laser rotation manipulation of cold molecules and its optical centrifuge, and so on.
Atom optics has seen fast development and vast achievements,and has wide application prospects.The basic principles of the manipulation and control of cold atoms using magnetic and laser fields are briefly introduced,followed by a detailed review of recent progress of geometric and wave atom optics as well as potential applications and the development of atom optics devices Topics include the reflection of atom beams and mirrors,the deflection(refraction) and focusing of atom beams and lenses,the diffraction of atom matter waves and gratings,atom interferometers,and atomic holography.
The goal of the present article is to review the major developments that have led to the current understanding of molecule–field interactions and experimental methods for manipulating molecules with electromagnetic fields. Molecule–field interactions are at the core of several, seemingly distinct areas of molecular physics. This is reflected in the organisation of this article, which includes sections on field control of molecular beams, external field traps for cold molecules, control of molecular orientation and molecular alignment, manipulation of molecules by non-conservative forces, ultracold molecules and ultracold chemistry, controlled many-body phenomena, entanglement of molecules and dipole arrays, and stability of molecular systems in high-frequency super-intense laser fields. The article contains 852 references.
The motion of molecules that possess a permanent electric or magnetic dipole moment can be manipulated using electric or magnetic fields. Various devices have been developed over the last few decades to deflect or focus molecules, to orient them in space, and to decelerate or accelerate them. These precisely controlled molecules are ideal starting points for scattering experiments that reveal the quantum mechanical nature of molecular interactions. In this Tutorial Review, we present an overview of the various manipulation tools, discuss how they can be used to advantage in molecular beam scattering experiments, and review recent progress in this field. We describe a selection of benchmark experiments that illustrate the unique possibilities that are available nowadays to study molecular collisions under controlled conditions.
In the field of atom optics, there has been much interests in developing components such as lenses, mirrors, beam splitters and waveguides to manipulate neutral atoms. Especially many clever methods to focus neutral atoms have been developed. The lenses have been constructed using the static electrical and magnetic fields, Fresnel zone plates, and radiation pressure forces. Before the laser cooling and trapping techniques were invented, the electrostatic fields could not be used for manipulating neutral atoms because of its weak interaction energy with atoms. After the cold atoms were available, it has been possible to manipulate atoms with weak electrostatic interaction energy. We developed an atom lens system using electrostatic fields.
Deflection by magnetic or electric field gradients has long been used to analyze or to alter the translational trajectories of neutral gas-phase atoms or molecules. Recent work has developed sources of slow, cold molecular beams that offer means to enhance markedly the attainable deflections, which are inversely proportional to the translational kinetic energy. The sensitivity and resolution can thus be much increased, typically by factors of 10(2)-10(4). We illustrate ways to exploit this enhanced deflection capability, particularly when balancing electric and magnetic deflections. Chemical scope can be greatly extended by utilizing feeble but ubiquitous interactions, especially the induced electric dipole due to the molecular polarizability and magnetic moments resulting from molecular rotation or nuclear spins. We also examine the effect of non-Maxwellian velocity distributions produced by supersonic expansions or by quantum statistics (pertinent for ultracold beams). Generic plots are provided, employing dimensionless variables, to facilitate the design and interpretation of experiments with deflections amplified by low kinetic energy.
Different from atoms, molecules have unique properties, and play an important role in the research of atomic, molecular and optical physics. Cold molecules have important applications in science and have been studied for more than 20 years. But traditional methods, such as the Stark decelerator, have hit a bottleneck: it is hard to increase the phase space density of molecules. Extending the direct laser-cooling technique to new molecular species has recently been a hot topic and also a big challenge. In this review paper, on one hand, we make a brief review to recent progresses on the direct laser cooling of polar molecules. On the other hand, a demonstration on the feasibility of laser cooling BaF molecule has been experimentally illustrated, including the analysis on the molecular energy levels, measurements of the high-resolution spectroscopy, efficient pre-cooling and state preparation via buffer-gas cooling and detailed investigations on the molcule-light interactions. All these results not only pave the way for future laser-cooling and -trapping experiments, but also serve as a reference for the laser-cooling explorations on new molecular species.