Laser guiding of cold molecules in a hollow optical fiber and continuous-wave cold molecular beam generation

A novel scheme for guiding arbitrary buffer-gas cooled neutral molecules in a hollow optical fiber (HOF) using a red-detuned HE₁₁ mode is proposed and analysed theoretically. We give the electromagnetic field distribution of the HE₁₁ mode in the HOF and calculate the optical potential of an I₂ molecule, and study the molecule guiding mechanism using a classical Monte Carlo simulation. Using a 6 kW input laser, an S-shape HOF with a 2 cm curvature radius for both bends, and an input molecular beam with a transverse temperature of 0.5 K and longitudinal temperature of 5 K, we obtain a guiding efficiency of ～0.126% for the scheme, and the transverse and longitudinal temperatures of the guided molecular beam are 1.9 mK and 0.5 K, respectively.