Electrostatic Trapping of Ultracold Polar Molecules

This thesis describes the progress made in the production, spectroscopic characterization, and confinement of ultracold, polar NaCs molecules. A two-species magneto-optical trap (MOT) for the simultaneous cooling and trapping of sodium and cesium atoms is utilized for the creation of ultracold NaCs molecules via photoassociation. The molecules are detected via resonance-enhanced multi-photon ionization and subsequent ion detection with a channel electron multiplier. Spectra are obtained by scanning the frequencies of the photoassociating laser and the photoionizing laser. The resulting discovery that deeply bound, strongly polar molecules are created via one-step photoassociation has lead to efforts to confine the molecules via electric field trapping. The design of an electric field trap for polar molecules that can be superposed onto a MOT is presented. This ’Thin WIre electroStatic Trap’ (TWIST) has been built and successfully implemented. First experiments beyond the demonstration of successful trapping of NaCs molecules have been conducted, showing the effects of dissociative photoionization and inelastic collisions of electrically trapped NaCs molecules with cesium atoms confined by a MOT. An outline of a possible pathway to a quantum degenerate dipolar gas, exploiting the properties of the TWIST, is given at the end of this thesis.