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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 23: Cold Molecules (joint session MO/Q)
Q 23.4: Talk
Tuesday, March 3, 2026, 12:00–12:15, P 105
Magneto-optical trapping of aluminum monofluoride — •Jionghao Cai1, José Eduardo Padilla Castillo1, Priyansh Agarwal1, Pulkit Kukreja1, Russell Thomas1, Boris Sartakov1, Stefan Truppe2, Gerard Meijer1, and Sidney Wright1 — 1Fritz-Haber-Institute, Berlin, Germany — 2Imperial College London, London, UK
Ultracold polar molecules have aroused great interest for their applications in testing fundamental physics and chemistry. Whilst there has been considerable success in associating ultracold diatomic molecules from laser-cooled atoms, these species are weakly bound and scarce in nature. A complementary approach is to laser cool molecules directly. So far, all diatomic and polyatomic species loaded into a magneto-optical trap (MOT) are spin-doublet molecules, and therefore chemically reactive. Moreover, their electronic structure only supports simple optical cycling from the first rotationally excited (N=1) level.
Recently, we demonstrated the first MOT of a molecule with a (spin-singlet) X1Σ+ electronic ground state, aluminum monofluoride (AlF). We can routinely trap 6×104 AlF molecules via the deep ultraviolet A1Π← X1Σ+ transition, and, different to spin-doublet molecules, can straightforwardly select different rotational levels in the MOT. In this talk, I will provide a status update for the AlF MOT experiments, investigations of potential loss channels in the cooling cycle, and prospects for further cooling and trapping.
Keywords: Magneto-optical trapping; Ultracold molecules; Diatomic molecules; Deep Ultraviolet laser