A slow, continuous beam of cold benzonitrile

Abstract

A cold, continuous, high flux beam of benzonitrile has been created via buffer gas cooling. The beam has a typical forward velocity of 67 5ms1, a velocity spread of 30 m s1 and a typical flux of 1015 molecules s1, measured via microwave spectroscopy. This beam represents the slowest demonstrated forward velocity for any cold beam of medium sized (45 atoms) polyatomic molecules produced to date, demonstrating a new source for high resolution spectroscopy. The expected resolution of a spectrometer based on such beams exceeds current instrument-limited resolution by almost an order of magnitude. This source also provides an attractive starting point for further spatial manipulation of such molecules, including eventual trapping.