Erlangen 2022 – scientific programme

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 52: Ultracold Atoms and Molecules II (joint session Q/A)

Q 52.4: Talk

Thursday, March 17, 2022, 15:00–15:15, Q-H10

Surface charge removal in a microstructured electrostatic trap for cold polyatomic molecules — •Jindaratsamee Phrompao, Michael Ziemba, Florian Jung, Martin Zeppenfeld, Isabel Rabey, and Gerhard Rempe — Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, Hans-Kopfermann-Straße 1, 85748 Garching, Germany

Cold polar molecules are an excellent platform to explore fascinating research areas in both physics and chemistry, such as cold collisions, cold chemistry, and tests of fundamental physics. Motivated by these applications, techniques in the field are advancing rapidly with the overall goal of producing dense and cold molecular samples. To achieve these, electric trapping provides long trapping times and deep confinement of the molecules. In our electrostatic trap [1], we combine two parallel microstructured capacitor plates and a surrounding ring electrode to provide a tunable homogeneous electric control field and transverse confinement, respectively. By combining the various electrodes, polar molecules are confined within a boxlike potential. However, the trap depth is limited by high-voltage breakdown and surface charge accumulation, which possibly also induces early breakdown.

In this talk, we will present induced removal of charges by applying UV light and heating to test samples. We find that heating these to more than 200^∘C can remove the charge almost completely, but the characteristics are not reproducible. In contrast, charge removal by shining in UV light is more reliable and capable of providing rapid and complete charge removal.

[1] B.G.U. Englert et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 263003 (2011)