Doppler-free laser spectroscopy of buffer gas cooled molecular radicals

Abstract

We demonstrate Doppler-free saturated absorption spectroscopy of cold molecular radicals formed by laser ablation inside a cryogenic buffer gas cell. By lowering the temperature, congested regions of the spectrum can be simplified, and by using different temperatures for different regions of the spectrum a wide range of rotational states can be studied optimally. We use the technique to study the optical spectrum of YbF radicals with a resolution of 30 MHz, measuring the magnetic hyperfine parameters of the electronic ground state. The method is suitable for high resolution spectroscopy of a great variety of molecules at controlled temperature and pressure, and is particularly well-suited to those that are difficult to produce in the gas phase.

11 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Magnetic trapping and Zeeman relaxation of imidogen (NH X-triplet-Sigma)
• Electrostatic extraction of cold molecules from a cryogenic reservoir
• Lifetime of the A(v'=0) state and Franck-Condon factor of the A-X(0-0) transition of CaF measured by the saturation of laser-induced fluorescence
• Magnetic trapping of atomic nitrogen (14^N) and cotrapping of NH (X-triplet-Sigma-)
• Realization of Coherent Optically Dense Media via Buffer-Gas Cooling

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Design for a fountain of YbF molecules to measure the electron's electric dipole moment
• A buffer gas beam source for short, intense and slow molecular pulses
• Enhanced Yield from a Cryogenic Buffer Gas Beam Source via Excited State Chemistry
• Diffusion, thermalization and optical pumping of YbF molecules in a cold buffer gas cell
• Franck-Condon Factors and Radiative Lifetime of the A^{2}Π_{1/2} - X^{2}Σ^{+} Transition of Ytterbium Monoflouride, YbF
• High-resolution mid-infrared spectroscopy of buffer-gas-cooled methyltrioxorhenium molecules
• Absorption spectroscopy for laser cooling and high-fidelity detection of barium monofluoride molecules
• Deceleration and trapping of heavy diatomic molecules using a ring-decelerator
• Saturated absorption spectroscopy of buffer-gas-cooled Barium monofluoride molecules