Trapping and separating polar molecules by a hexapole trap

A technique to trap and separate particle of different dipole moment using a hexapole potential is presented. The operation is similar to the method of ion trap mass spectrometer in that the trajectory of a dipole can be described by Mathieu equation. The technique can also be generalized to trap particle of higher order moment by including higher multipole components in the design of the potential. (C) 2005 American Institute of Physics.