Investigation of Buffer-Gas cooled AlCl for laser cooling and trapping

Ultracold molecules provide an ideal testbed for fundamental physics. The unique and complex energy structures can enhance the sensitivity for precision measurements and can enable the exploration of new physics, such as searches for the electron electric dipole moment, the control of ultracold chemical reactions, and new quantum information processing platforms. However, the complex transitions of molecules also make them more difficult to be cooled and trapped. Aluminum monochloride (AlCl) has a highly diagonal Frank-Condon factor of 99.88%, making it an excellent candidate for laser cooling. In our experiment, AlCl is generated via laser ablation on KCl:Al target in a cryogenic buffer-gas beam cell. Here, we report on our progress towards slowing a beam of AlCl with custom-build high-power UV laser systems at 261 nm and on survey spectroscopy of other diatomic species, which are potentially interesting for laser cooling.