An ultracold high-density sample of rovibronic ground-state molecules in an optical lattice

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Danzl, Johann G. and Mark, Manfred J. and Haller, Elmar and Gustavsson, Mattias and Hart, Russell and Aldegunde, Jesus and Hutson, Jeremy M. and Nägerl, Hanns-Christoph (2010) An ultracold high-density sample of rovibronic ground-state molecules in an optical lattice. Nature Physics, 6 (4). pp. 265-270. ISSN 1745-2473 (https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1533)

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Abstract

Control over all internal and external degrees of freedom of molecules at the level of single quantum states will enable a series of fundamental studies in physics and chemistry(1,2). In particular, samples of ground-state molecules at ultralow temperatures and high number densities will facilitate new quantum-gas studies(3) and future applications in quantum information science(4). However, high phase-space densities for molecular samples are not readily attainable because efficient cooling techniques such as laser cooling are lacking. Here we produce an ultracold and dense sample of molecules in a single hyperfine level of the rovibronic ground state with each molecule individually trapped in the motional ground state of an optical lattice well. Starting from a zero-temperature atomic Mott-insulator state(5) with optimized double-site occupancy(6), weakly bound dimer molecules are efficiently associated on a Feshbach resonance(7) and subsequently transferred to the rovibronic ground state by a stimulated four-photon process with >50% efficiency. The molecules are trapped in the lattice and have a lifetime of 8 s. Our results present a crucial step towards Bose-Einstein condensation of ground-state molecules and, when suitably generalized to polar heteronuclear molecules, the realization of dipolar quantum-gas phases in optical lattices(8-10).

ORCID iDs

Danzl, Johann G., Mark, Manfred J., Haller, Elmar ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7951-1721, Gustavsson, Mattias, Hart, Russell, Aldegunde, Jesus, Hutson, Jeremy M. and Nägerl, Hanns-Christoph;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)