Journal of Chemical Physics, Vol.109, No.7, 2656-2661, 1998
Spectroscopy of buffer-gas cooled vanadium monoxide in a magnetic trapping field
Spectroscopy of buffer-gas cooled vanadium monoxide (VO) is performed in the presence of a magnetic trapping field and at low field. VO is created via laser ablation. A helium buffer gas, chilled by a dilution refrigerator, cools 10(12) VO molecules to 1.8+/-0.2 K within 10 ms. The measured rotational temperature is 1.5+/-0.8 K. Spatially resolved Zeeman spectra allow the magnetic broadening terms of several optical transitions to be determined. The density of VO decays with a characteristic time of 60 ms, thus precluding the observation of trapping.