Traveling wave deceleration of heavy polar molecules in low-field seeking states

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a method to decelerate heavy polar molecules using a cryogenic source and a traveling-wave Stark decelerator, significantly broadening the applicability of Stark deceleration techniques.

Contribution

It introduces a combined cryogenic source and traveling-wave Stark decelerator approach for decelerating heavy polar molecules in low-field seeking states.

Findings

Successful deceleration of YbF molecules

Excellent agreement between experiments and simulations

Extended Stark deceleration to a wider range of molecules

Abstract

We demonstrate the deceleration of heavy polar molecules in low-field seeking states by combining a cryogenic source and a travelling-wave Stark decelerator. The cryogenic source provides a high intensity beam with low speed and temperature, and the travelling-wave decelerator provides large deceleration forces and high phase-space acceptance. We prove these techniques using YbF molecules and find the experimental data to be in excellent agreement with numerical simulations. These methods extend the scope of Stark deceleration to a very wide range of molecules.