Establishing a nearly closed cycling transition in a polyatomic molecule
Establishing a nearly closed cycling transition in a polyatomic molecule
We study optical cycling in the polar free radical calcium monohydroxide (CaOH) and establish an experimental path towards scattering $\ensuremath{\sim}{10}^{4}$ photons. We report rovibronic branching ratio measurements with precision at the $\ensuremath{\sim}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}4}$ level and observe weak symmetry-forbidden decays to bending modes with nonzero vibrational angular momentum. Calculations are in excellent …