Trapping of Molecular Oxygen together with Lithium Atoms

Nitzan Akerman, Michael Karpov, Yair Segev, Natan Bibelnik, Julia Narevicius, and Edvardas Narevicius
Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 073204 – Published 16 August 2017

Abstract

We demonstrate simultaneous deceleration and trapping of a cold atomic and molecular mixture. This is the first step towards studies of cold atom-molecule collisions at low temperatures as well as application of sympathetic cooling. Both atoms and molecules are cooled in a supersonic expansion and are loaded into a moving magnetic trap that brings them to rest via the Zeeman interaction from an initial velocity of 375m/s. We use a beam seeded with molecular oxygen, and entrain it with lithium atoms by laser ablation prior to deceleration. The deceleration ends with loading of the mixture into a static quadrupole trap, which is generated by two permanent magnets. We estimate 109 trapped O2 molecules and 105 Li atoms with background pressure limited lifetime on the order of 1 sec. With further improvements to lithium entrainment we expect that sympathetic cooling of molecules is within reach.

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  • Received 30 October 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.073204

© 2017 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Atomic, Molecular & Optical

Authors & Affiliations

Nitzan Akerman, Michael Karpov, Yair Segev, Natan Bibelnik, Julia Narevicius, and Edvardas Narevicius

  • Department of Chemical Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 7610001, Israel

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Issue

Vol. 119, Iss. 7 — 18 August 2017

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