Experimental investigation on ionized ultracold molecules formed in a magneto-optical trap by time-of-flight mass spectroscopy

Abstract

We use time-of-flight mass spectroscopy to detect the ultracold ground state Cs2 molecules formed directly by a photoassociation due to the trapping laser beams and repumping laser beam in a magneto-optical trap. We investigate the dependences of the Cs2+ intensity on operating voltage of micro-channel-plate, accelerating field intensity and duration time of the accelerating field. The experimental results are consistent with theoretical fitting. We obtain the best optimal parameters suited to our experimental condition, which is important for the future experiment on ultracold molecule photoassociation and photoionization spectroscopy.