UC Santa Barbara

Cold molecules (1-7K) have been a powerful probe of cold chemistry, chemical analysis and fundamental physics beyond the standard model. By far the most widely used source of cold molecules have been the pulsed supersonic jet. In the past decade another cooling method known as buffer gas cooling has emerged for the production of cold diatomic and polyatomic molecules in a continuous manner. Buffer gas cooled molecules are brought to low temperatures via collisions with cryogenic gas, which enables faster acquisition and assignment of molecular spectra. Buffer gas cooling coupled with microwave spectroscopy has enabled novel applications in chiral detection and mixture analysis due to its high sensitivity. In this work, such capabilities are further expanded with a focus on chiral systems. I describe the experimental advances in buffer gas cell design, and then discuss three key results: the chiral detection of unknown multi-component mixtures, the first microwave differential precision measurement for probing parity violation effects in chiral molecules, and the study of low temperature formation kinetics of ethanol-methanol and water dimers. Finally, I discuss the source and effects of stray electric fields in the buffer gas cell and present preliminary efforts towards studying chiral imprinting and buffer gas cooled reactive species.