Electrostatic Extraction of Cold Molecules from a Cryogenic Reservoir

Abstract

We present a method which delivers a continuous, high-density beam of slow and internally cold polar molecules. In our source, warm molecules are first cooled by collisions with a cryogenic helium buffer gas. Cold molecules are then extracted by means of an electrostatic quadrupole guide. For ${\mathrm{ND}}_{3}$ the source produces fluxes up to $(7{\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}}_{4}^{7})\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{10}\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{\text{molecules}}/\mathrm{s}$ with peak densities up to $(1.0{\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}}_{0.6}^{1.0})\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{9}\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{\text{molecules}}/{\mathrm{cm}}^{3}$. For ${\mathrm{H}}_{2}\mathrm{CO}$ the population of rovibrational states is monitored by depletion spectroscopy, resulting in single-state populations up to $(82\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}10)%$.