Untrapped dynamics of molecules within an accelerating optical lattice

The dynamics of untrapped molecules within an accelerating optical lattice produced by two counterpropagating, linearly chirped, far-off resonant optical fields, was studied. Numerical simulation revealed that each species in a gas mixture has a well-resolved peak in velocity space determined by a critical velocity. Based on the results, a mass spectroscopic technique analogous to time of flight mass spectrometry was proposed.