Erlangen 2022 – scientific programme
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MO: Fachverband Molekülphysik
MO 7: Cold Molecules
MO 7.7: Talk
Tuesday, March 15, 2022, 12:00–12:15, MO-H8
Buffer gas cooling and optical cycling of AlF molecules — •Simon Hofsäss1, Maximilian Doppelbauer1, Sidney Wright1, Sebastian Kray1, Jesus Perez-Rios1, Boris Sartakov2, Gerard Meijer1, and Stefan Truppe1 — 1Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Berlin, Germany — 2Prokhorov General Physics Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
Ultracold, polar molecules promise many new applications in fundamental physics and chemistry. In particular, aluminium monofluoride (AlF) is a promising candidate to produce a dense, ultracold gas through laser cooling. We show that AlF can be produced very efficiently in a bright, pulsed cryogenic buffer gas molecular beam, and demonstrate rapid optical cycling on the Q rotational lines of the A1Π ↔ X1Σ+ transition near 228 nm. This is the first step towards cooling the molecules to the ultracold regime. Losses from the cooling cycle are sufficiently low to allow loading the molecules into a MOT. We also present our recent progress in creating a dense and cold cloud of cadmium (Cd) atoms using the 1 P1 ← 1S0 transition near 229 nm. Cd is an excellent test species for our MOT apparatus as it shares many properties with the more complex case of AlF.