Stark Deceleration of an Effusive Molecular Beam by a Single Semi-Gaussian Beam

We propose a novel scheme to decelerate a cw precooled molecular beam by using an optical Stark decelerator, which is composed of a red-detuned cw semi-Gaussian beam. The dynamical process of the optical Stark deceleration for a cw methane molecular beam is studied by Monte Carlo simulations. It is realized that the proposed optical Stark decelerator can be used to continuously slow a cw methane molecular beam with a longitudinal temperature of 30mK, and a maximum reduction in the most probable speed of 0.388m/s (corresponding to a relative change of 9.93%) can be obtained by using a single semi-Gaussian beam with a power of 500W and a maximum central intensity of about 7.96×10⁷W/cm².