Improved setup for producing slow beams of cold molecules using a rotating nozzle

Intense beams of cold and slow molecules are produced by supersonic expansion out of a rapidly rotating nozzle, as first demonstrated by M. Gupta and D. Herschbach [J. Phys. Chem. A 103, 10670 (1999); 105, 1626 (2001)]. An improved setup is presented that is able to accelerate or decelerate cold atomic and molecular beams by up to 500 m/s. Technical improvements are discussed and beam parameters are characterized by detailed analysis of time-of-flight density distributions. The possibility of combining this beam source with electrostatic fields for guiding polar molecules is demonstrated.