Adiabatic mixed-field orientation of ground-state-selected carbonyl sulfide molecules

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates strong adiabatic mixed-field orientation of ground-state carbonyl sulfide molecules using combined laser and static electric fields, achieving high orientation degrees and validating results with quantum simulations.

Contribution

It presents the first experimental realization of adiabatic mixed-field orientation of ground-state OCS molecules and compares results with theoretical models.

Findings

Achieved orientation degree of 0.882 in ground-state OCS

Identified field strengths where orientation saturates

Results agree with time-dependent Schrödinger equation simulations

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrated strong adiabatic mixed-field orientation of carbonyl sulfide molecules (OCS) in their absolute ground state of $\text{N}_{\text{up}}/\text{N}_{\text{tot}}=0.882$. OCS was oriented in combined non-resonant laser and static electric fields inside a two-plate velocity map imaging spectrometer. The transition from non-adiabatic to adiabatic orientation for the rotational ground state was studied by varying the applied laser and static electric field. Above static electric field strengths of 10 kV/cm and laser intensities of $10^{11} \text{W/cm}^2$ the observed degree of orientation reached a plateau. These results are in good agreement with computational solutions of the time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation.