Magneto-optical trapping of aluminum monofluoride

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2506.02266v1
• Date: Mon, 02 Jun 2025 21:15:14 GMT
• Title: Magneto-optical trapping of aluminum monofluoride
• Authors: J. E. Padilla-Castillo, J. Cai, P. Agarwal, P. Kukreja, R. Thomas, B. G. Sartakov, S. Truppe, G. Meijer, S. C. Wright,
• Abstract summary: We demonstrate a magneto-optical trap (MOT) of aluminum monofluoride (AlF)<n>The MOT operates on the strong A$1Pileftarrow$X$1Sigma+$ transition near 227.5nm.<n>Laser cooling and trapping of AlF is conceptually similar to the introduction of alkaline-earth atoms into cold atom physics.
• Score: 0.0
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Abstract: Magneto-optical trapping of molecules has thus far been restricted to molecules with $^2\Sigma$ electronic ground states. These species are chemically reactive and only support a simple laser cooling scheme from their first excited rotational level. Here, we demonstrate a magneto-optical trap (MOT) of aluminum monofluoride (AlF), a deeply bound and intrinsically stable diatomic molecule with a $^1\Sigma^+$ electronic ground state. The MOT operates on the strong A$^1\Pi\leftarrow{}$X$^1\Sigma^+$ transition near 227.5~nm, whose Q$(J)$ lines are all rotationally closed. We demonstrate a MOT of about $6\times 10^4$ molecules for the $J=1$ level of AlF, more than $10^4$ molecules for $J=2$ and $3$, and with no fundamental limit in going to higher rotational levels. Laser cooling and trapping of AlF is conceptually similar to the introduction of alkaline-earth atoms into cold atom physics, and is key to leveraging its spin-forbidden a$^3\Pi \leftarrow{}$X$^1\Sigma^+$ transition for precision spectroscopy and narrow-line cooling.

Related papers

• High density loading and collisional loss of laser cooled molecules in an optical trap [5.79316046874697]
  SrF molecules from a red-detuned magneto-optical trap (MOT) are compressed and cooled in a blue-detuned MOT. We observe two-body loss with rate coefficient $beta = 2.7+1.2_-0.8times 10-10 text cm3 text s-1$. Achieving this density and temperature opens a path to evaporative cooling towards quantum degeneracy of laser-cooled molecules.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2023-07-11T15:35:51Z)
• Dy adatom on MgO(001) substrate: DFT+U(HIA) study [75.7995398006171]
  The electronic structure and magnetism of individual Dy atom adsorbed on the MgO(001) substrate is investigated. Our studies can provide a viable route for further investigation and prediction of the rare-earth single atom magnets.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2023-06-14T10:20:02Z)
• Impact of the ligand deformation on the $\mathcal{P}$,$\mathcal{T}$-violation effects in the YbOH molecule [77.34726150561087]
  The ytterbium monohydroxide is a promising molecule for a new physics searches. We have calculated the value of $l$-doubling for the YbOH molecule with approximation of fixed O-H bond length.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2022-08-15T08:16:19Z)
• Computational Insights into Electronic Excitations, Spin-Orbit Coupling Effects, and Spin Decoherence in Cr(IV)-based Molecular Qubits [63.18666008322476]
  We provide insights into key properties of Cr(IV)-based molecules aimed at assisting chemical design of efficient molecular qubits. We find that the sign of the uniaxial zero-field splitting (ZFS) parameter is negative for all considered molecules. We quantify (super)hyperfine coupling to the $53$Cr nuclear spin and to the $13C and $1H nuclear spins.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2022-05-01T01:23:10Z)
• Spectroscopic characterization of the a$^3\Pi$ state of aluminum monofluoride [0.9485862597874625]
  All $Q$ lines of the strong A$1Pi$ $leftarrow$ X$1Sigma+$ transition around 227nm are rotationally closed. The same holds for the narrow, spin-forbidden a$3Pi$ $leftarrow$ X$1Sigma+$ transition around 367 nm.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2021-12-17T13:09:37Z)
• Laser Manipulation of Spin-Exchange Interaction Between Alkaline-Earth Atoms in $^1$S$_0$ and $^3$P$_2$ States [14.119534067895096]
  We show that due to the structure of alkaline-earth (like) atoms, the heating effects induced by the laser beams of our methods are very weak. As a result, the Feshbach resonances, with which one can efficiently control the SEI by changing the laser intensity, may be induced by the laser beams with low-enough heating rate.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2021-11-04T14:49:19Z)
• High-resolution 'magic'-field spectroscopy on trapped polyatomic molecules [62.997667081978825]
  Rapid progress in cooling and trapping of molecules has enabled first experiments on high resolution spectroscopy of trapped diatomic molecules. Extending this work to polyatomic molecules provides unique opportunities due to more complex geometries and additional internal degrees of freedom.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2021-10-21T15:46:17Z)
• Rovibrational structure of the Ytterbium monohydroxide molecule and the $\mathcal{P}$,$\mathcal{T}$-violation searches [68.8204255655161]
  The energy gap between levels of opposite parity, $l$-doubling, is of a great interest. The influence of the bending and stretching modes on the sensitivities to the $mathcalP$,$mathcalT$-violation requires a thorough investigation.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2021-08-25T20:12:31Z)
• Ultracold $^{88}\rm{Sr}_2$ molecules in the absolute ground state [0.0]
  We report efficient all-optical creation of an ultracold gas of alkaline-earth-metal dimers in their absolute ground state. Our results pave the way for the use of alkaline-earth-metal dimers for high-precision spectroscopy.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2021-08-12T23:33:17Z)
• Algorithmic Ground-state Cooling of Weakly-Coupled Oscillators using Quantum Logic [52.77024349608834]
  We introduce a novel algorithmic cooling protocol for transferring phonons from poorly- to efficiently-cooled modes. We demonstrate it experimentally by simultaneously bringing two motional modes of a Be$+$-Ar$13+$ mixed Coulomb crystal close to their zero-point energies. We reach the lowest temperature reported for a highly charged ion, with a residual temperature of only $Tlesssim200mathrmmu K$ in each of the two modes.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2021-02-24T17:46:15Z)
• Unresolved sideband photon recoil spectroscopy of molecular ions [0.0]
  We present a general framework for simulating the expected photon recoil spectra in spectroscopy regimes. We present two complementary cases: spectroscopy of the broad 3s $2$S$_1/2$ - 3p $2$P$_3/2$ electronic transition. The atomic ion has been picked to introduce a simple system to make comparisons with experimental results.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2020-04-06T19:34:41Z)
• Optimal coupling of HoW$_{10}$ molecular magnets to superconducting circuits near spin clock transitions [85.83811987257297]
  We study the coupling of pure and magnetically diluted crystals of HoW$_10$ magnetic clusters to microwave superconducting coplanar waveguides. Results show that engineering spin-clock states of molecular systems offers a promising strategy to combine sizeable spin-photon interactions with a sufficient isolation from unwanted magnetic noise sources.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2019-11-18T11:03:06Z)

This list is automatically generated from the titles and abstracts of the papers in this site.

This site does not guarantee the quality of this site (including all information) and is not responsible for any consequences.