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arXiv:physics/0410220 · Physical Review Letters

Photoassociative Production and Trapping of Ultracold KRb Molecules

Dajun Wang, J. Qi, M. F. Stone, О. Nikolayeva, Haijin Wang, Brian C. Hattaway, S. D. Gensemer, P. L. Gould, Edward E. Eyler, William C. Stwalley

Published Dec 7, 2004• 209 citations

Abstract

We have produced ultracold heteronuclear KRb molecules by the process of photoassociation in a two-species magneto-optical trap. Following decay of the photoassociated KRb*, the molecules are detected using two-photon ionization and time-of-flight mass spectroscopy of ${\mathrm{K}\mathrm{R}\mathrm{b}}^{+}$. A portion of the metastable triplet molecules thus formed are magnetically trapped. Photoassociative spectra down to $91\text{ }\text{ }{\mathrm{c}\mathrm{m}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ below the $\mathrm{K}(4s)+\mathrm{R}\mathrm{b}(5{p}_{1/2})$ asymptote have been obtained. We have made assignments to all eight of the attractive Hund's case (c) KRb* potential curves in this spectral region.

DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.93.243005

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We have produced ultracold heteronuclear KRb molecules by the process of photoassociation in a two-species magneto-optical trap. Following decay of the photoassociated KRb*, the molecules are detected using two-photon ionization and time-of-flight mass spectroscopy of

{\mathrm{K}\mathrm{R}\mathrm{b}}^{+}

. A portion of the metastable triplet molecules thus formed are magnetically trapped. Photoassociative spectra down to

91\text{ }\text{ }{\mathrm{c}\mathrm{m}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}

below the

\mathrm{K}(4s)+\mathrm{R}\mathrm{b}(5{p}_{1/2})

asymptote have been obtained. We have made assignments to all eight of the attractive Hund's case (c) KRb* potential curves in this spectral region.

We report the observation of translationally ultracold heteronuclear ground-state molecules in a two-species magneto-optical trap containing 39K and 85Rb atoms. The KRb molecules are produced via photoassociation and detected by multiphoton ionization. We had characterized their temperature and measured their formation rate constant. We believe that the two-species trap could be used as a reliable source of ultracold molecules to be captured by electrostatic, magnetic, or optical traps. This possibility will certainly motivate further investigation of quantum collective effects as well as high-resolution spectroscopy of the rovibrational level structure of cold heteronuclear molecular systems.

We have produced ultracold polar RbCs molecules via photoassociation starting from laser-cooled 85 Rb and 133 Cs atoms in a dual-species, forced dark magneto-optical trap. The formed electronically excited RbCs* molecules correlated to the Rb(5S 1/2 ) + Cs(6P 1/2 ) dissociation limit are observed by trap loss spectroscopy. Following the decay of these excited RbCs* molecules, the formed ground state molecules are directly ionized by a two-photon single-color pulse dye laser, which is a new ionization mechanism for ground state RbCs molecules and thence detected by time-of-flight mass spectroscopy.

This thesis describes the spectroscopy work on ultracold 39K 85Rb molecules as part of our effort towards producing ground-state ultracold polar molecules. ^ The starting points of our experiment are laser cooled and trapped K and Rb atoms in dual-species MOTs and the molecule formation method is photoassociation (PA). A fraction of the PA-produced excited-state molecules can spontaneously emit to the two lowest electronic states, the X 1Σ + state and the a 3Σ + state, to form high vibrational level molecules. In order to develop a population transfer scheme to make deeply bound molecules, we have studied the spectroscopy of KRb in several steps. Besides the PA step, we have also carried out a state-selective detection experiment to study the population distribution of the high vibrational level molecules formed via spontaneous emission. The detection method is pulsed-laser based ion time-of-flight mass spectroscopy. Due to the linewidth limitations of the pulsed laser, this detection method can only resolve vibrational structures. A cw laser induced ion depletion spectroscopy technique has been developed in order to obtain rotational resolution. Using this ion depletion method, we have studied a possible stimulated Raman transfer scheme via the 3 1Σ+ state. To this end, we have obtained all the spectroscopic information required to produce deeply bound KRb molecules in a single vibrational and rotational level. ^ Several other spectroscopic studies using the high vibrational level ultracold molecules are also discussed. ^

In this paper we report the observation of translationally ultracold heteronuclear groundstate molecules in a two species magneto‐optical trap (MOT) containing 39K and 85Rb atoms. The KRb molecules are produced via photoassociation and detected by multiphoton ionization. Their temperature and formation rate constant were characterized. The two species MOTs may be used in the future as a reliable source of ultracold molecules to be captured by electrostatic, magnetic or optical traps. This possibility will certainly motivate further investigation of quantum collective effects as well as high‐resolution spectroscopy of the rovibrational level structure of cold heteronuclear molecular systems.