A slow, continuous beam of cold benzonitrile

A cold, continuous, high flux beam of benzonitrile has been created via buffer gas cooling. The beam has a typical forward velocity of 67 ± 5 m s(-1), a velocity spread of ±30 m s(-1) and a typical flux of 10(15) molecules s(-1), measured via microwave spectroscopy. This beam represents the slowest demonstrated forward velocity for any cold beam of medium sized (>5 atoms) polyatomic molecules produced to date, demonstrating a new source for high resolution spectroscopy. The expected resolution of a spectrometer based on such beams exceeds current instrument-limited resolution by almost an order of magnitude. This source also provides an attractive starting point for further spatial manipulation of such molecules, including eventual trapping.