Hyperfine structure of the A¹Π state of AlCl and the progress toward laser cooling

AlCl, a ¹Σ molecule, is an excellent candidate for applying direct laser cooling to load it into a magneto-optical trap. Among its advantages are a high scattering rate and highly diagonal Franck-Condon factors of ~99.88%, offering the prospect of short slowing distances and a small number of lasers needed for repumping decay into higher vibrational states. Despite intense work on AlCl over the last century, several aspects relevant to laser cooling remain unknown and require experimental investigation. Here, we report on our measurements of the hyperfine structure of the excited A¹Π state of AlCl (Phys. Rev. A 108, 062821). Furthermore, we will present our progress on the measurement of the electric dipole moment of AlCl and discuss the implication of these results on optical cycling and slowing of a cryogenic-buffer gas beam of AlCl.