Decelerating Neutral Dipolar Molecules

It is experimentally demonstrated that a beam of neutral dipolar molecules can be efficiently decelerated with a time-varying electric field. A pulsed beam of neutral metastable CO molecules is slowed down from 225 m/s ( $E_{\mathrm{kin}}=59\mathrm{}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-1\mathrm{}}$) to 98 m/s ( $E_{\mathrm{kin}}=11\mathrm{}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-1\mathrm{}}$) upon passage through an array of 63 synchronously pulsed electric field stages.