Adiabatic mixed-field orientation of ground-state-selected carbonyl sulfide molecules

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrated strong adiabatic mixed-field orientation of carbonyl sulfide molecules (OCS) in their absolute ground state of $\text{N}_{\text{up}}/\text{N}_{\text{tot}}=0.882$. OCS was oriented in combined non-resonant laser and static electric fields inside a two-plate velocity map imaging spectrometer. The transition from non-adiabatic to adiabatic orientation for the rotational ground state was studied by varying the applied laser and static electric field. Above static electric field strengths of 10 kV/cm and laser intensities of $10^{11} \text{W/cm}^2$ the observed degree of orientation reached a plateau. These results are in good agreement with computational solutions of the time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation.