The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. The molecular-beam speed was controlled by the mixing ratio of H2S in Kr to match the recoil velocity of the SH photofragments such that some SH radicals were produced with near-zero laboratory-frame velocity. The density of SH radicals in the 2 Π 3/2 , v = 0, J = 3/2 state was followed by (2+1) REMPI over seven orders of magnitude of signal intensity.5 ms after photodissociation, SH radicals moving faster than the capture velocity of 13 m/s had left the trap. The 1/e trap lifetime of the remaining SH radicals was 40 ± 10 ms at an estimated density of 5×10 4 molecules/cm 3 . Photostop offers a simple and direct way to accumulate absolute ground state molecules in a variety of traps.

The absolute density of SD radicals in a supersonic jet has been measured down to (1.1 ± 0.1) × 10(5) cm(-3) in a modestly specified apparatus that uses a cross-correlated combination of cavity ring-down and laser-induced fluorescence detection. Such a density corresponds to 215 ± 21 molecules in the probe volume at any given time. The minimum detectable absorption coefficient was quantum-noise-limited and measured to be (7.9 ± 0.6) × 10(-11) cm(-1), in 200 s of acquisition time, corresponding to a noise-equivalent absorption sensitivity for the apparatus of (1.6 ± 0.1) × 10(-9) cm(-1) Hz(-1/2).