Orienting polar molecules without hexapoles: Optical state selection with adiabatic orientation

A pedagogic review of technology used to orient polar molecules is presented to place in context the report of a new approach to this problem. Laboratory frame orientation of polar molecules is achieved by state-specific optical pumping in a region free of electric fields followed by adiabatic transport into a static electric field. This approach overcomes some of the limitations of the more common hexapole focusing method. In particular the method is nearly insensitive to the kinetic energy of the sample. We demonstrate production of oriented samples of NO (μel = 0.15 D) with translational energies above 1 eV in both high- and low-field seeking states. The method can be extended to many other classes of molecules, including near symmetric tops and ions.