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Physical Review A

Beyond the phase stability in standard Stark deceleration

Qing Liu, Wenli Li, Shanwu Wang, Chenyue Pan, Du Wang, Tao Yang, Dongdong Zhang, Shunyong Hou, Jianping Yin

Published Mar 24, 2025• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Improving the number and number density of cold molecules is a longstanding goal in cold molecule research. Stark deceleration provides an important access to taming polar molecules and makes the collision and high-resolution spectroscopy a reality. However, the full deceleration efficiency of the traditional Stark decelerator has been impeded by its intrinsic loss mechanisms, which significantly limit its applications. In this paper, we introduce an interspersed guiding deceleration strategy that surpasses the periodic phase stability limitations of traditional Stark decelerator. Our approach is theoretically and experimentally validated using the $\mathrm{N}{\mathrm{D}}_{3}$ molecule, achieving significant gains of $3\ensuremath{\sim}8$ for all final velocity ranges. Additionally, our method requires a lower operation number of switching that is beneficial for reducing the consumption of the high-voltage switches and suitable for controlling a large number of deceleration stages. This method is applicable to any traditional crossed-pin Stark decelerator and can stop a wider variety of molecular species with higher densities, including those with a small Stark shift-to-mass ratio. It is anticipated to become an essential tool for producing cold and dense molecular samples, offering promising prospects for cold collision studies and precision measurements.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.111.032816

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The growing field of cold molecule physics has demonstrated many methods of quantum control for precision measurement and molecular interaction studies. One particular method is Stark deceleration, which uses electric field gradients to produce packets of slow polar molecules. Since Stark deceleration does not increase phase-space density, the efficiency of the deceleration process is critical in determining the final cold molecule density. This dissertation describes three different Stark deceleration techniques. The first type of deceleration is pulsed-pin deceleration. We use this technique to produce slow OH molecules that can be trapped for cold collision studies. A two photon state-selective detection system, which includes a 118 nm photon, is used to determine the density distribution of OH in the trap. We explore the advantages and limitations to creating 118 nm light. The second and third types of Stark deceleration are pulsed-ring and traveling-wave methods of running a ring-geometry decelerator. Ring-geometry decelerators present improved deceleration efficiencies due to the cylindrical symmetry of the electrodes and true three-dimensional confinement. The pulsed-ring mode of the ring decelerator uses commercial high-voltage switches to apply discrete pulses to the ring electrodes. The continuous operation mode of the ring decelerator uses varying sine-wave voltages to create a traveling Stark potential well and has proven to be incredibly challenging due to the analog high voltage requirements of the system. In order to bring ND3 seeded in krypton (∼415 m/s) down to rest in the laboratory, sine wave voltages with amplitudes up to ±10 kV, currents up to 500 mA, and a bandwidth of 30 kHz down to DC are required. We describe a high-voltage amplifier that can be used for traveling-wave deceleration. The traveling-wave Stark deceleration mode is then compared to the pulsed-ring Stark deceleration mode and cases where one mode is superior to another are discussed.

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Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics•Jul 6, 2018•16 citations
Improving the number and number density of cold molecules is a longstanding goal in cold molecule research. Stark deceleration provides an important access to taming polar molecules and makes the collision and high-resolution spectroscopy a reality. However, the full deceleration efficiency of the traditional Stark decelerator has been impeded by its intrinsic loss mechanisms, which significantly limit its applications. In this paper, we introduce an interspersed guiding deceleration strategy that surpasses the periodic phase stability limitations of traditional Stark decelerator. Our approach is theoretically and experimentally validated using the ND3\mathrm{N}{\mathrm{D}}_{3}ND3​ molecule, achieving significant gains of 3\ensuremath∼83\ensuremath{\sim}83\ensuremath∼8 for all final velocity ranges. Additionally, our method requires a lower operation number of switching that is beneficial for reducing the consumption of the high-voltage switches and suitable for controlling a large number of deceleration stages. This method is applicable to any traditional crossed-pin Stark decelerator and can stop a wider variety of molecular species with higher densities, including those with a small Stark shift-to-mass ratio. It is anticipated to become an essential tool for producing cold and dense molecular samples, offering promising prospects for cold collision studies and precision measurements.
The growing field of cold molecule physics has demonstrated many methods of quantum control for precision measurement and molecular interaction studies. One particular method is Stark deceleration, which uses electric field gradients to produce packets of slow polar molecules. Since Stark deceleration does not increase phase-space density, the efficiency of the deceleration process is critical in determining the final cold molecule density. This dissertation describes three different Stark deceleration techniques. The first type of deceleration is pulsed-pin deceleration. We use this technique to produce slow OH molecules that can be trapped for cold collision studies. A two photon state-selective detection system, which includes a 118 nm photon, is used to determine the density distribution of OH in the trap. We explore the advantages and limitations to creating 118 nm light. The second and third types of Stark deceleration are pulsed-ring and traveling-wave methods of running a ring-geometry decelerator. Ring-geometry decelerators present improved deceleration efficiencies due to the cylindrical symmetry of the electrodes and true three-dimensional confinement. The pulsed-ring mode of the ring decelerator uses commercial high-voltage switches to apply discrete pulses to the ring electrodes. The continuous operation mode of the ring decelerator uses varying sine-wave voltages to create a traveling Stark potential well and has proven to be incredibly challenging due to the analog high voltage requirements of the system. In order to bring ND3 seeded in krypton (∼415 m/s) down to rest in the laboratory, sine wave voltages with amplitudes up to ±10 kV, currents up to 500 mA, and a bandwidth of 30 kHz down to DC are required. We describe a high-voltage amplifier that can be used for traveling-wave deceleration. The traveling-wave Stark deceleration mode is then compared to the pulsed-ring Stark deceleration mode and cases where one mode is superior to another are discussed.
A Stark decelerator can slow down polar molecules to very low velocities. When the velocities are very low, the number of cold molecules obtained is very small. In order to obtain a higher quantity of cold molecules, inspired by the work of Reens et al. [Phys. Rev. Res. 2 (2020) 033 095], we propose an alternative method of operating a Stark decelerator. Through the trajectory simulation of OH molecules in the decelerator, we find that the number of cold molecules can be greatly increased by one order of magnitude at both low and high final velocities on a Stark decelerator consisting of around 150 electrodes. This development is due to the improved longitudinal and the transverse focusing property provided by the new switching schemes and the high-voltage configurations on the decelerator unit.
Stark deceleration allows for precise control over the velocity of a pulsed molecular beam and, by the nature of its limited phase-space acceptance, reduces the energy width of the decelerated packet. We describe an alternate method of operating a Stark decelerator that further reduces the energy spread over the standard method of operation. In this alternate mode of operation, we aggressively decelerate the molecular packet using a high phase angle. This technique brings the molecular packet to the desired velocity before it reaches the end of the decelerator; the remaining stages are then used to longitudinally and transversely guide the packet to the detection/interaction region. The result of the initial aggressive slowing is a reduction in the phase-space acceptance of the decelerator and thus a narrowing of the velocity spread of the molecular packet. In addition to the narrower energy spread, this method also results in a velocity spread that is nearly independent of the final velocity. Using the alternate deceleration technique, the energy resolution of molecular collision measurements can be improved considerably.
Abstract There is increasing interest in cold heavy polar molecular species for their applications in fundamental physics, such as the tests of the electron’s electric dipole moment. Here we propose a switched ring Stark decelerator suitable for slowing both light and heavy polar molecules. Two typical polar molecular species, ND 3 and 205 TlF, are employed to test the feasibility of our scheme with the help of trajectory calculation. Our proposed scheme is found to share many advantages with the state-of-the-art traveling wave decelerator, yet with relatively simple electronics and flexible operation modes. Sub-millikelvin molecular samples can be conveniently obtained in our decelerator using a combined operation mode. These monochromatic beams are ideal starting points for precise studies of molecular collision, cold chemistry and high-resolution spectroscopy.
We experimentally test our homemade electrostatic Stark decelerator with 99 slowing stages with a supersonic ND 3 molecular beam. Relationships between the performance of the decelerator and various parameters, including the kinetic energy loss per stage versus the synchronous phase angle ϕ 0 , the final central velocity of a slowed molecular packet versus both the phase angle ϕ 0 and the decelerating stage number and the relative slowing efficiency versus the phase angle ϕ 0 , are studied both theoretically and experimentally. With our homemade Stark decelerator, a supersonic ND 3 beam is successfully decelerated from 330 to 24 m s −1 , producing a molecular packet with a translational temperature of ∼36 mK. Experimental results are in good agreement with their simulated and theoretically calculated counterparts. In addition, we propose and study a new mode to operate a Stark decelerator that allows one to prepare a slow, number-density-enhanced, high-energy-resolution molecular beam, which is essentially a complementary mode to the scheme proposed by Parazzoli et al (2009 New J. Phys. 11 055031) in a low velocity regime and promises important applications in the research of cold collisions and cold chemistry.
Abstract Stark deceleration is a technique that uses time-varying inhomogeneous electric fields to decelerate polar molecules for various molecular beam and trapping experiments. New ring-geometry Stark decelerators with continuously varying voltages offer a method to produce a more intense source of molecules than in the more typically used crossed-pin geometry Stark decelerators. However, this new technique, traveling-wave Stark deceleration, is more experimentally challenging due to the electronic requirements. A third method, pulsed-ring Stark deceleration, uses ring-geometry electrodes with high-voltage pulses to decelerate molecules. The discrete voltages make it easier to implement, and it is more efficient in certain situations due to an increased longitudinal potential gradient. Here, we present an experimental realization of a ring-geometry Stark decelerator using both continuously varying and discrete voltages. Using the pulsed-ring method, we demonstrate a newly accessible low-velocity regime for moderate peak voltages on ring electrodes. This opens up the opportunity to efficiently decelerate various molecular species using a medium length decelerator. A comparison of experimental and simulated results between traveling-wave and pulsed-ring Stark deceleration is presented along with a simple model for determining when each mode is more efficient.