The vibrational branching ratios of SrOH for radiative decay to the ground electronic state, $X{}^2{\mathrm{\Sigma }}^{+}$, from the first two electronically excited states, $A{}^2\mathrm{\Pi }$ and $B{}^2{\mathrm{\Sigma }}^{+}$, are determined experimentally at the $\sim {10}^{-5}$ level. The observed small branching ratios enable the design of a full, practical laser-cooling scheme, including magnetooptical trapping and sub-Doppler laser cooling, with $>{10}^4$ photon scatters per molecule. Ab initio calculations sensitive to weak vibronic transitions are performed to facilitate the experimental measurement and analysis, and show good agreement with the experiment.

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• Molecular spectra
• Molecule trapping & guiding