Bright, continuous beams of cold free radicals

Abstract

We demonstrate a cryogenic buffer gas-cooled molecular beam source capable of producing bright, continuous beams of cold and slow free radicals via laser ablation over durations of up to 60~seconds. The source design uses a closed liquid helium reservoir as a large thermal mass to minimize heating and ensure reproducible beam properties during operation. Under typical conditions, the source produces beams of our test species SrF, containing $5\times 10^{12}$molecules per steradian per second in the $X^2\Sigma (v=0,N=1)$ state with a rotational temperature of $1.0(2)$K and a forward velocity of $140$m/s. The beam properties are robust and unchanged for multiple cell geometries but depend critically on the helium buffer gas flow rate, which must be $\ge 10$ standard cubic centimeters per minute to produce bright, continuous beams of molecules for an ablation repetition rate of $55$Hz.

arXiv comment5 pages, 4 figures

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Cited by in corpus (13)

• Laser cooled molecules
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• An ultracold molecular beam for testing fundamental physics
• Optical cycling of AlF molecules
• A laser cooling scheme for precision measurements using barium monofluoride (137Ba19F) molecules
• Cryogenic Buffer Gas beams of AlF, CaF, MgF, YbF, Al, Ca, Yb and NO -- a comparison
• Electrostatic focusing of cold and heavy molecules for the ACME electron EDM search
• Characterizing the Zeeman slowing force for ${}^{40}$Ca${}^{19}$F molecules
• Radiative Decay Rate and Branching Fractions of MgF
• Influence of source parameters on the longitudinal phase-space distribution of a pulsed cryogenic beam of barium fluoride molecules
• Hyperfine structure of the ${\mathbf{A}}^1\mathbf{\Pi }$ state of AlCl and its relevance to laser cooling and trapping
• Cold CH radicals for laser cooling and trapping
• A stable 2 W continuous-wave 261.5 nm laser for cooling and trapping aluminum monochloride