Abstract

One of three priorities of the 1994 National Research Council Report Atomic, Molecular and Optical Science is "to promote research … to better control and manipulate atoms, molecules, charged particles, and light." Although many techniques are available for atoms, charged particles, and light, we propose here new techniques for rapidly cooling (more generally, manipulating) the vibrational, rotational, and translational energy of simple molecules. A concrete example is manipulating Cs₂ by using the B¹Πn-¹Σ_g⁺ bands. The key component is an optically pumped amplifier (using the same molecule, here Cs₂) to provide the synchronized multiple-single-frequency laser required to optically couple a significant number of rovibronic levels while rapidly (and simultaneously) tuning over all coupled Doppler profiles (as in atomic translational cooling). Proposed molecular- beam experiments providing total cooling in ~12 ms are described.

© 1995 Optical Society of America