Intense atomic and molecular beams via neon buffer-gas cooling

We realize a continuous, intense, cold molecular and atomic beam source based on buffer-gas cooling. Hot vapor (up to 600K) from an oven is mixed with cold (15K) neon buffer gas, and then emitted into a high-flux beam. The novel use of cold neon as a buffer gas produces a forward velocity distribution and low-energy tail that is comparable to much colder helium-based sources. We expect this source to be trivially generalizable to a very wide range of atomic and molecular species with significant vapor pressure below 1000K. The source has properties that make it a good starting point for laser cooling of molecules or atoms, cold collision studies, trapping, or nonlinear optics in buffer-gas-cooled atomic or molecular gases. A continuous guided beam of cold deuterated ammonia with a flux of 3× 10ND3 molecules s−1 and a continuous free-space beam of cold potassium with a flux of 1× 1016Katoms s−1 are realized. 1 Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed. New Journal of Physics 11 (2009) 055018 1367-2630/09/055018+12$30.00 © IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft