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arXiv · 2208.13762

Optical Trapping of a Polyatomic Molecule in an $\ell$-Type Parity Doublet State

Christian Hallas·Nathaniel B. Vilas·Loïc Anderegg·Paige Robichaud·Andrew Winnicki·Chaoqun Zhang·Lan Cheng·John M. Doyle
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Abstract

We report optical trapping of a polyatomic molecule, calcium monohydroxide (CaOH). CaOH molecules from a magneto-optical trap are sub-Doppler laser cooled to $20(3)~\mu\text{K}$ in free space and loaded into an optical dipole trap. We attain an in-trap molecule number density of $3(1) \times 10^9~\text{cm}^{-3}$ at a temperature of $57(8)~\mu$K. Trapped CaOH molecules are optically pumped into an excited vibrational bending mode, whose $\ell$-type parity doublet structure is a potential resource for a wide range of proposed quantum science applications with polyatomic molecules. We measure the spontaneous, radiative lifetime of this bending mode state to be $\sim$$0.7~\text{s}$.

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Christian Hallas, Nathaniel B. Vilas, Loïc Anderegg, Paige Robichaud, Andrew Winnicki, Chaoqun Zhang, Lan Cheng, John M. Doyle. 2022-08-29. Optical Trapping of a Polyatomic Molecule in an $\ell$-Type Parity Doublet State. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.130.153202

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