Non-stick vacuum wall collisions with a laser-coolable molecule
Abstract
Molecular species that are suitable for direct laser cooling are typically considered lost or destroyed if they collide with an ambient temperature vacuum wall. Here, we study surface collisions with aluminum monofluoride (AlF), a laser-coolable molecule that survives this process with unusually high probability. We detect the outgoing AlF molecules from a single wall collision via Doppler-sensitive laser-induced fluorescence spectroscopy, using incoming supersonic (pulsed) and thermochemical (continuous) molecular beams. The angular, velocity and rovibrational level distributions of the outgoing molecules show near-complete thermalisation to the wall in a single collision event. We determine an upper limit to the surface residence time of about 5μs, and by monitoring the decay in density of pulses of molecules loaded into a small storage volume, we deduce the surface sticking probability for different materials. For a siloxane-coated metallic surface, the sticking probability of AlF is about 0.015, allowing us to accumulate molecules from the thermochemical source into an ambient temperature storage vessel at densities near 108cm−3. This provides a route to compact, portable traps for neutral molecules.
Related
- P,T-odd sensitivity parameters of laser-coolable SrOH from relativisticcoupled-cluster theory
- A Pairwise Surrogate for Gravitational-Wave Spectra from Highly Relativistic Vacuum Bubble Collisions
- Quantum Vacuum Nonlinearities in Laser Interferometers
- Analytical theory of coherent radiation and radiation friction in laser-plasma collisions
- Muon pair production in electron-positron collisions close to threshold in the presence of a strong laser field
BibTeX
@misc{kukreja2026nonstick,
title = {{Non-stick vacuum wall collisions with a laser-coolable molecule}},
author = {P. Kukreja and L. A. Rautenberg and J. C. Blumenstock and S. Kray and G. Meijer and S. C. Wright},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.11406},
eprint = {2609.11406},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.11406},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Non-stick vacuum wall collisions with a laser-coolable molecule
AU - P. Kukreja
AU - L. A. Rautenberg
AU - J. C. Blumenstock
AU - S. Kray
AU - G. Meijer
AU - S. C. Wright
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/10
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.11406
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.11406
AB - Molecular species that are suitable for direct laser cooling are typically considered lost or destroyed if they collide with an ambient temperature vacuum wall. Here, we study surface collisions with aluminum monofluoride (AlF), a laser-coolable molecule that survives this process with unusually high probability. We detect the outgoing AlF molecules from a single wall collision via Doppler-sensitive laser-induced fluorescence spectroscopy, using incoming supersonic (pulsed) and thermochemical (continuous) molecular beams. The angular, velocity and rovibrational level distributions of the outgoing molecules show near-complete thermalisation to the wall in a single collision event. We determine an upper limit to the surface residence time of about 5μs, and by monitoring the decay in density of pulses of molecules loaded into a small storage volume, we deduce the surface sticking probability for different materials. For a siloxane-coated metallic surface, the sticking probability of AlF is about 0.015, allowing us to accumulate molecules from the thermochemical source into an ambient temperature storage vessel at densities near 10^8cm^−3. This provides a route to compact, portable traps for neutral molecules.
ER -