Date of Completion

5-3-2018

Embargo Period

5-2-2018

Keywords

Optical Force, Polychromatic, Bichromatic, Calcium Monofluoride, CaF, Diatomic, Bichromatic Force, BCF

Major Advisor

Phillip Gould

Associate Advisor

Robin Cote

Associate Advisor

Winthrop Smith

Field of Study

Physics

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Open Access

Open Access

Abstract

This dissertation discusses an experiment to demonstrate the application of the stimulated bichromatic optical force (BCF) on the diatomic molecule calcium monofluoride (CaF). The research demonstrates the deflection of a supersonic beam of CaF through the application of BCF under a variety of conditions, highlighting distinctive characteristics of the force. Results show that the measured deflection of the molecular beam is consistent with the behavior of BCF under the tested conditions. In particular, we have measured a predicted reversal in the direction of the force as well as an applied force which exceeds the radiation pressure force. Detailed modeling of the BCF in multilevel systems corroborates our findings. We discuss the development and application of these models with respect to non-ideal conditions present in the experiment. The construction of the molecular beam source and BCF laser systems are discussed in detail. A brief discussion of further modeled extensions of the BCF through the addition of higher order sidebands is presented as well. Overall, our results demonstrate that the BCF is a potentially useful tool for manipulation of cold molecules.

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