Type-II Zeeman slowing: Characterization and comparison to conventional radiative beam slowing schemes

Abstract

We describe a novel Zeeman slowing method reported in (Petzold et al (2018 New J. Phys. 20 042001)) and compare it to conventional radiative beam slowing schemes. The scheme is designed to work on a type-II level structure making it particularly attractive for radiative beam slowing of molecules. Working on the D$_{1}$-line of atomic $^{39}$K, we demonstrate efficient slowing of an atomic beam from $\mathrm{400 \, m \, s^{-1}}$ down to $\mathrm{35 \, m \, s^{-1}}$ with a final flux of $3.3 \cdot 10^{9} \, \mathrm{cm}^{-2}\mathrm{s^{-1}}$. We give experimental details and compare our results to other established radiative slowing schemes in atomic and molecular physics. We find type-II Zeeman slowing to outperform white-light slowing commonly used in molecular beam slowing and to be comparably efficient as traditional type-I Zeeman slowing being the standard beam slowing technique in atomic physics.