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Physical Review A

Controllable chip-based beam splitter for cold polar molecules

Xu Xue-Yan, Tao Yang, Shunyong Hou, Jianping Yin

Published Jul 15, 2019• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We proposed a $\mathsf{Y}$-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-${\mathrm{D}}_{3}$ ($\mathrm{N}{\mathrm{D}}_{3}$) 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.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.100.013411

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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.
Compared to the atomic chip, which has been a powerful platform to perform an astonishing range of applications from rapid Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) production to the atomic clock, the molecular chip is only in its infant stages. Recently a one-dimensional electric lattice was demonstrated to trap polar molecules on a chip. This excellent work opens up the way to building a molecular chip laboratory. Here we propose a two-dimensional (2D) electric lattice on a chip with concise and robust structure, which is formed by arrays of squared gold wires. Arrays of microtraps that originate in the microsize electrodes offer a steep gradient and thus allow for confining both light and heavy polar molecules. Theoretical analysis and numerical calculations are performed using two types of sample molecules, ND3\mathrm{N}{\mathrm{D}}_{3}ND3​ and SrF, to justify the possibility of our proposal. The height of the minima of the potential wells is about 10 \ensuremath{\mu}m above the surface of the chip and can be easily adjusted in a wide range by changing the voltages applied on the electrodes. These microtraps offer intriguing perspectives for investigating cold molecules in periodic potentials, such as quantum computing science, low-dimensional physics, and some other possible applications amenable to magnetic or optical lattice. The 2D adjustable electric lattice is expected to act as a building block for a future gas-phase molecular chip laboratory.
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 propose a scheme to guide and funnel cold polar molecules above the surface of an insulating substrate (i.e., a molecular chip) using an electrostatic field generated by the combination of three parallel charged wires. We calculate the spatial distributions of the electric fields from the above charged-wire layout and their Stark potential for cold CO molecules, and analyze the relationships between the electric field and the geometric parameters of our charged-wire system. Also, we calculate and study the straight and bent guiding efficiency of cold polar molecules (including the guiding efficiency in our molecular funnel) by Monte Carlo simulation. Our study shows that the proposed charged-wire scheme can be used to realize the controllable surface guiding of cold polar molecules in the weak-field-seeking state on a chip, and form various integrated molecular optical elements, even to generate a continous wave cold molecular beam on a chip. In addition, our theoretically calculated results are in good agreement with ones of Monte Carlo simulation, and the guiding efficiency in our molecular funnel can be higher than 90%.
Over the past two decades, a chip-based atom double well has matured as a powerful art with many applications in modern science. However, its molecular counterpart, which holds potential for higher precision and broader science, has been little studied. In this paper, we propose a scheme for chip-based electrostatic double-well potential for polar molecules. The structure consists of two square wires and three square electrodes deposited on an insulating chip. By adjusting the applied voltages, versatile operations on the double well can be easily realized, such as precisely changing the depth and height of the double well, dynamically deforming the double-well potential to a single well and vice versa, and adjusting the double well from symmetric to asymmetric. We have developed numerical and analytical methods to verify the feasibility of our scheme with both light (15ND3^{15}\mathrm{ND}_{3}15ND3​) and heavy (202Hg19F^{202}\mathrm{Hg}^{19}\mathrm{F}202Hg19F) polar molecules. The microscopic integrated double-well potential presents a promising platform for confined molecule interferometry. Also, it provides new perspectives for the study of cold collisions, sympathetic cooling, quantum information processing, and quantum simulation.
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.