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International Journal of Modern Physics B

Electrostatic beam splitter for polar molecules

Shengqiang Li

Published Nov 12, 2018• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

An electrostatic beam splitter composed of three charged poles for polar molecules in weak-field-seeking states is proposed. First, the schematic diagram is given. Then we calculate the spatial distribution of the electrical field using the finite element software. We simulate the dynamic process of the loading and splitting polar molecules using the classical Monte Carlo method. We investigate the influences of the longitudinal velocity of the incident molecular beam and the voltages on the performance of our beam splitter. In order to alter the splitting ratio of the molecular beam conveniently, we cut off the two output arms of beam splitter at a certain position. Then we study the influences of the voltages and cutting positions on the splitting ratio. At last, we discuss two methods of keeping the height of guiding center nearly unchanged.

DOI
10.1142/s0217979218503228

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An electrostatic beam splitter composed of three charged poles for polar molecules in weak-field-seeking states is proposed. First, the schematic diagram is given. Then we calculate the spatial distribution of the electrical field using the finite element software. We simulate the dynamic process of the loading and splitting polar molecules using the classical Monte Carlo method. We investigate the influences of the longitudinal velocity of the incident molecular beam and the voltages on the performance of our beam splitter. In order to alter the splitting ratio of the molecular beam conveniently, we cut off the two output arms of beam splitter at a certain position. Then we study the influences of the voltages and cutting positions on the splitting ratio. At last, we discuss two methods of keeping the height of guiding center nearly unchanged.
We propose a beam splitter for cold polar molecules in weak-field-seeking states that uses a Y-shaped charged wire half embedded in a substrate and sandwiched by a charged metallic parallel-plate capacitor. We demonstrate our molecular-beam splitter and study its dynamic beam-splitting process for the guided cold molecules by using Monte Carlo simulation. Our study shows that cold polar molecules from a supersonic beam source with a mean velocity of a few hundred meters per second can be split with a fixed 0.5/0.5 splitting ratio, and an adjustable splitting ratio of about 0.03-0.97 can be realized by introducing a small alteration to the scheme.
We experimentally demonstrate a controllable electrostatic beam splitter for guided ND3 molecules with a single Y-shaped charged wire and a homogeneous bias field generated by a charged metallic parallel-plate capacitor. We study the dependences of the splitting ratio R of the guided ND3 beam and its relative guiding efficiency η on the voltage difference between two output arms of the splitter. The influences of the molecular velocity v and the cutting position L on the splitting ratio R are investigated as well, and the guiding and splitting dynamic processes of cold molecules are simulated. Our study shows that the splitting ratio R of our splitter can be conveniently adjusted from 10% to 90% by changing ΔU from -6 kV to +6 kV, and the simulated results are consistent with our experimental ones.
We propose a versatile electrostatic trap scheme using several charged spherical electrodes and a bias electric field. We first give the two-ball scheme and derive the analytical solution of the electric field. In order to make a comparison, we also give the numerical solution calculated by the finite element software (Ansoft Maxwell). Considering the loading of cold polar molecules into the trap, we give the three-ball scheme. We first give the analytical and numerical solutions of the distribution of the electric field. Then we simulate the dynamic process of the loading and trapping cold molecules using the classical Monte Carlo method. We analyze the influence of the velocity of the incident molecular beam and the loading time on the loading efficiency. After that, we give the temperature of the trapped cold molecules. Our study shows that the loading efficiency can reach 82%, and the corresponding temperature of the trapped molecules is about 24.6 mK. At last, we show that the single well divides into two ones by increasing the bias electric field or decreasing the voltages applied to the spherical electrodes.
We proposed a Y\mathsf{Y}Y-shaped molecular beam splitter for guided polar molecules, composed by several 1-\ensuremath{\mu}m-thick gold electrodes deposited on a chip. The splitter has a total length of 10 mm and the height of the electrostatic guiding center (minimum of the electric fields) is about 100 \ensuremath{\mu}m from the surface of the chip. Our theoretical analysis and trajectory calculations are carried out using two types of polar molecules of ammonia-D3{\mathrm{D}}_{3}D3​ (ND3\mathrm{N}{\mathrm{D}}_{3}ND3​) and strontium fluoride (SrF). The calculated results show explicitly that, by applying a few hundred volts on the electrodes, the splitter can direct the guided (light or heavy) polar molecules to either of the two outgoing arms with any desired ratio (from 0% to 100%) by changing the voltages applied on the electrodes. This chip-scale molecular beam splitter offers a platform for molecular optics, precision measurements, and quantum computation. This basic optical element could be integrated into molecular chips and serve as a building block for a future gas-phase molecular laboratory on a chip.
A versatile electrostatic trap with open optical access for cold polar molecules in weak-field-seeking state is proposed in this paper. The trap is composed of a pair of disk electrodes and a hexapole. With the help of a finite element software, the spatial distribution of the electrostatic field is calculated. The results indicate that a three-dimensional closed electrostatic trap is formed. Taking ND 3 molecules as an example, the dynamic process of loading and trapping is simulated. The results show that when the velocity of the molecular beam is 10 m/s and the loading time is 0.9964 ms, the maximum loading efficiency reaches 94.25% and the temperature of the trapped molecules reaches about 30.3 mK. A single well can be split into two wells, which is of significant importance to the precision measurement and interference of matter waves. This scheme, in addition, can be further miniaturized to construct one-dimensional, two-dimensional, and three-dimensional spatial electrostatic lattices.
This paper proposes a scheme to guide cold polar molecules by using a single charged wire half embanked in an insulating substrate and a homogeneous bias electric field, which is generated by a plate capacitor composed of two infinite parallel metal plates. The spatial distributions of the electrostatic field produced by the combination of the charged wire and the plate capacitor and the corresponding Stark potentials (including dipole forces) for metastable CO molecules are calculated, the relationships between the electric field and the parameters of our charged-wire layout are analysed. It also studies the influences of the insulator on the electric field distribution and the discharge effect. This study shows that the proposed scheme can be used to guide cold polar molecules in the weak-field – seeking states, and to form various molecule-optical elements, such as molecular funnel, molecular beam-splitters and molecule interferometer, even to construct a variety of integrated molecule-optical elements and their molecule chips.