Related papers: Production of Ultracold, Polar RbCs* Molecules via…
Chemical reactions typically proceed via stochastic encounters between reactants. Going beyond this paradigm, we combine exactly two atoms into a single, controlled reaction. The experimental apparatus traps two individual laser-cooled…
Ultracold molecules offer entirely new possibilities for the control of quantum processes due to their rich internal structure. Recently, near quantum degenerate gases of molecules have been prepared in their rovibronic ground state. For…
An experimental pump-probe study of the photoassociative creation of translationally ultracold rubidium molecules is presented together with numerical simulations of the process. The formation of loosely bound excited-state dimers is…
Using an ultracold gas of $^{87}$Rb$^{133}$Cs molecules, we perform hyperfine-resolved spectroscopy of transitions from the vibronic ground state to the lowest rovibrational states of the electronic state $\mathrm{b}\,^3\Pi_0$, as a…
We report the creation of an ultracold gas of bosonic $^{39}$K$^{133}$Cs molecules. We first demonstrate a cooling strategy relying on sympathetic cooling of $^{133}$Cs to produce an ultracold mixture. From this mixture, weakly bound…
We explore coherent multi-photon processes in $^{87}$Rb$^{133}$Cs molecules using 3-level lambda and ladder configurations of rotational and hyperfine states, and discuss their relevance to future applications in quantum computation and…
Ultracold polyatomic molecules offer intriguing new opportunities in cold chemistry, precision measurements, and quantum information processing, thanks to their rich internal structure. However, their increased complexity compared to…
A theoretical model is proposed for the formation of ultracold ground-state triatomic molecules in weakly bound energy levels. The process is driven by the electric component of a microwave field, which induces the association of an…
We report a detailed molecular spectroscopy study on the lowest excited electronic states of $^{23}\rm{Na}^{87}\rm{Rb}$ for producing ultracold $^{23}\rm{Na}^{87}\rm{Rb}$ molecules in the electronic, rovibrational and hyperfine ground…
We demonstrate efficient transfer of ultracold molecules into a deeply bound rovibrational level of the singlet ground state potential in the presence of an optical lattice. The overall molecule creation efficiency is 25%, and the transfer…
We report the successful production of an ultracold sample of absolute ground-state $^{23}$Na$^{87}$Rb molecules. Starting from weakly-bound Feshbach molecules formed via magneto-association, the lowest rovibrational and hyperfine level of…
This review describes recent experimental and theoretical advances in forming molecules in ultracold gases of trapped alkali metal atoms, both by magnetic tuning through Feshbach resonances and by photoassociation. Molecular Bose-Einstein…
Photoexcitation rates for creation of ultralong-range Rydberg molecules (ULRM) with 31$\lesssim n \lesssim41$ in both ground and excited vibrational levels in cold ($T\sim900$~nK) gases of polarized and unpolarized $^{87}$Sr are presented.…
Experiments with cold ion-atom mixtures have recently opened the way for the production and application of ultracold molecular ions. Here, in a comparative study, we theoretically investigate ground and several excited electronic states and…
We present a theoretical analysis of optical pathways for formation of cold Ca($^1$S)Na$^+$($^1$S) molecular ions via an intermediate state. The formation schemes are based on ab initio potential energy curves and transition dipole moments…
We have produced large samples of ultracold $^{88}$Sr$_2$ molecules in the electronic ground state in an optical lattice. The molecules are bound by 0.05 cm$^{-1}$ and are stable for several milliseconds. The fast, all-optical method of…
We demonstrate that the long-lived bound states (super-molecules) can exist in the dilute limit when we tune the shape of effective potential between polar molecules by an external microwave field. Binding energies, average sizes, and phase…
We report on the creation of ultracold heteronuclear molecules assembled from fermionic 40K and bosonic 87Rb atoms in a 3D optical lattice. Molecules are produced at a heteronuclear Feshbach resonance both on the attractive and the…
We experimentally investigate various processes present in the photoassociative interaction of an ultracold atomic sample with shaped femtosecond laser pulses. We demonstrate the photoassociation of pairs of rubidium atoms into…
We probe resonant dipolar interactions between ultracold $^{40}$K$^{87}$Rb molecules and Rydberg $^{87}$Rb atoms in an optically trapped ensemble. Through state-selective ionization detection of the KRb molecules, we observe resonant energy…