Abstract
Stark deceleration enables the production of cold and dense molecular beams with applications in trapping, collisional studies, and precision measurement. Improving the efficiency of Stark deceleration, and hence the achievable molecular densities, is central to unlock the full potential of such studies. One of the chief limitations arises from the transverse focusing properties of Stark decelerators. We introduce a new operation strategy that circumvents this limit without any hardware modifications, and experimentally verify our results for hydroxyl radicals. Notably, improved focusing results in significant gains in molecule yield with increased operating voltage, formerly limited by transverse-longitudinal coupling. At final velocities sufficiently small for trapping, molecule flux improves by a factor of four, and potentially more with increased voltage. The improvement is more significant for less readily polarized species, thereby expanding the class of candidate molecules for Stark deceleration.
Highlights
Over the past two decades, Stark deceleration [1,2], where time-varying inhomogeneous electric fields are used to slow polarizable molecules, has enabled groundbreaking collisional [3,4,5] and spectroscopic [6,7,8,9] studies of a variety of species
We introduce a deceleration strategy, with two accompanying modes of operation for the conventional pulsed decelerator
In contrast to deceleration in the S = 1 mode, transverse focusing is directly applied by dedicated field distributions with much less dependence on the longitudinal coordinate, enabling further performance gains with increased voltage
Summary
Over the past two decades, Stark deceleration [1,2], where time-varying inhomogeneous electric fields are used to slow polarizable molecules, has enabled groundbreaking collisional [3,4,5] and spectroscopic [6,7,8,9] studies of a variety of species. Many important steps have been made, in understanding the flaws of the canonical pulsed decelerator [14,15], and in addressing them through the use of overtones [16,17], extra switching [18], or mixed phase angles [19,20] Even with these advances, outstanding inefficiencies of the pulsed decelerator, with regard to transverse phase stability,. Traveling wave deceleration takes a strong step toward truly efficient operation, it comes with significant engineering challenges. These may be partially addressed by the combined use of pulsed and traveling wave devices [24], or using traveling wave geometry with pulsed electronics [25,26]. It is readily applicable to existing decelerators and promises improvements in fields ranging from collisional studies and molecular trapping to precision measurements [34]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
