Electrostatic Trapping of Ultracold Polar Molecules (Paperback)

This book describes the progress made in the production, spectroscopic characterization, and confinement of ultracold, polar NaCs molecules. A two-species magneto-optical trap (MOT) for the simultaneous cooling and trapping of sodium and cesium atoms was utilized for the creation of ultracold NaCs molecules via photoassociation. The molecules were detected via resonance-enhanced multi-photon ionization and subsequent ion detection. Spectra were obtained by scanning the frequencies of the photoassociating and photoionizing lasers. The resulting discovery that deeply bound, strongly polar molecules are directly created has lead to efforts to confine the molecules via electric field trapping. The design of an electric field trap for polar molecules that can be superimposed onto a MOT is presented. This 'Thin WIre electroStatic Trap' (TWIST) has been built and successfully implemented.