Cold Metastable NH molecules

We report progress towards producing samples of cold trapped NH molecules using a stark decelerator. The NH molecule has a metastable state (a1Delta) approximately 1.5 eV above the ground state and a lifetime of several seconds. We create of a beam of cold NH molecules almost entirely in the a1 delta state by supersonic expansion and in situ photolysis of HNCO. We determine the rotational and translation temperatures of the beam using 2+1 resonance enhanced multi-photon ionization spectroscopy. The NH molecules are then slowed in a stark decelerator and trapped using static electric fields. Once the molecules are trapped, we will overlap a magnetic trap of ultracold rubidium atoms to study near-resonant quenching of metastable NH.