Different from atoms, molecules have unique properties, and play an important role in the research of atomic, molecular and optical physics. Cold molecules have important applications in science and have been studied for more than 20 years. But traditional methods, such as the Stark decelerator, have hit a bottleneck: it is hard to increase the phase space density of molecules. Extending the direct laser-cooling technique to new molecular species has recently been a hot topic and also a big challenge. In this review paper, on one hand, we make a brief review to recent progresses on the direct laser cooling of polar molecules. On the other hand, a demonstration on the feasibility of laser cooling BaF molecule has been experimentally illustrated, including the analysis on the molecular energy levels, measurements of the high-resolution spectroscopy, efficient pre-cooling and state preparation via buffer-gas cooling and detailed investigations on the molcule-light interactions. All these results not only pave the way for future laser-cooling and -trapping experiments, but also serve as a reference for the laser-cooling explorations on new molecular species.%分子由于其不同于原子的特殊性质,在原子、分子和光物理研究中有其独特的地位.冷分子研究已经开展了二三十年,取得了很多重大的进展.但是以斯塔克减速器为代表的传统冷却方案遇到瓶颈,很难进一步提高分子的相空间密度.将原子中成熟的激光冷却技术拓展到极性分子中是本领域近年来的重大突破,使得冷却和囚禁分子的范围得以大大扩展,分子的相空间密度也得以提高.本文对国内外激光冷却极性分子的最新成果进行综述,并以BaF分子为例介绍激光冷却极性分子的相关理论和技术,包括分子能级结构分析及精密光谱测量,采用缓冲气体冷却进行态制备和预冷却,以及通过冷分子束研究激光与BaF分子间的相互作用.这些为后续开展激光冷却与囚禁实验研究奠定了基础,也为开展其他新的分子冷却实验提供了参考.
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