Related papers: Laser control of ultracold molecule formation: The…
We consider the formation of cold ground-state polar molecules in a low vibrational level by laser fields. Starting from a pair of cold colliding atoms of dissimilar species, we propose a strategy consisting of three steps. In the first…
We discuss the production of ultracold molecules in their electronic ground state by photoassociation employing electronically excited states with ion-pair character and strong spin-orbit interaction. A short photoassociation laser pulse…
We report on the creation of ultracold 84Sr2 molecules in the electronic ground state. The molecules are formed from atom pairs on sites of an optical lattice using stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP). We achieve a transfer…
We produce ultracold dense trapped samples of 87Rb133Cs molecules in their rovibrational ground state, with full nuclear hyperfine state control, by stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) with efficiencies of 90%. We observe the onset…
We investigate pump-dump photoassociation of ultracold molecules with amplitude- and phase-modulated femtosecond laser pulses. For this purpose a perturbative model for the light-matter interaction is developed and combined with a genetic…
Ultracold paramagnetic and polar diatomic molecules are among the promising systems for quantum simulation of lattice-spin models. Unfortunately, their experimental observation is still challenging. Based on our recent \textit{ab-initio}…
We have studied the effects of chirped femtosecond laser pulses on the formation of ultracold molecules in a Rb magneto-optical trap. We have found that application of chirped femtosecond pulses suppressed the formation of 85Rb-2 and 87Rb-2…
The transfer of weakly bound KRb molecules from levels just below the dissociation threshold into the vibrational ground state with shaped laser pulses is studied. Optimal control theory is employed to calculate the pulses. The complexity…
We suggest and analyze a novel technique for efficient and robust creation of dense ultracold molecular ensembles in their ground rovibrational state. In our approach a molecule is brought to the ground state through a series of…
We report on coherent control of excitation processes of translationally ultracold rubidium dimers in a magneto-optical trap by using shaped femtosecond laser pulses. Evolution strategies are applied in a feedback loop in order to optimize…
Photoassociation of two ultracold rubidium atoms and the subsequent formation of stable molecules in the singlet ground and lowest triplet states is investigated theoretically. The method employs laser pulses inducing transitions via…
We report the creation of ultracold ground state $^{6}\textrm{Li}^{40}\textrm{K}$ polar molecules with high efficiency. Starting from weakly-bound molecules state, stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) is adopted to coherently…
We develop a complete theoretical description of photoassociative Stimulated Raman Adiabatic Passage (STIRAP) near a Feshbach resonance in a thermal atomic gas. We show that it is possible to use low intensity laser pulses to directly…
Control over the quantum states of individual molecules is crucial in the quest to harness their rich internal structure and dipolar interactions for applications in quantum science. In this paper, we develop a toolbox of techniques for the…
Understanding and controlling the electronic as well as ro-vibrational motion and, thus, the entire chemical dynamics in molecules is the ultimate goal of ultrafast laser and imaging science. In photochemistry, laser-induced dissociation…
Molecules have vibrational, rotational, spin-orbit and hyperfine degrees of freedom or quantum states, each of which responds in a unique fashion to external electromagnetic radiation. The control over superpositions of these quantum states…
We propose an improved photoassociation scheme to produce ultracold molecules in their vibronic ground state for the generic case where non-adiabatic effects facilitating transfer to deeply bound levels are absent. Formation of molecules is…
We have produced ultracold, polar RbCs* molecules via photoassociation in a laser-cooled mixture of Rb and Cs atoms. Using a model of the RbCs* molecular interaction which reproduces the observed rovibrational structure, we infer decay…
Photoassociation of ultracold atoms is shown to lead to alignment of the product molecules along the excitation laser polarization axis. We theoretically investigate pulsed photoassociation of $^{87}Rb$ atoms into a specific weakly-bound…
A narrow-linewidth, dual-wavelength laser system is vital for the creation of ultracold ground state molecules via stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) from a weakly bound Feshbach state. Here we describe how a relatively simple…