Towards laser cooling of AlF molecules in the deep ultraviolet

Aluminium monofluoride (AlF) has great potential as a molecule for laser cooling. It is stable, deeply bound and can be created in large quantities as an intense molecular beam. The laser cooling scheme for AlF is very simple, requiring one cooling laser and one vibrational repump. As the cooling transition is in the deep ultraviolet (DUV), the momentum transferred by each photon is relatively large, which allows fast and efficient cooling. In this poster, we present our setup for generating light in the DUV for laser cooling using Vertical-External-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers (VECSELs) and highly stable enhancement cavities for second harmonic generation. The setup is tested by cooling Cd atoms in a magneto-optical trap on the 1P1 ← 1S0 transition near 229nm, which is close to the main cooling transition of AlF (227.5nm). Finally, our progress towards laser cooling of AlF will be presented.