Phys. org January 31, 2024
Ultracold polyatomic molecules offer opportunities in cold chemistry, precision measurements and quantum information processing because of their rich internal structure. However, their increased complexity compared with diatomic molecules presents a challenge in using conventional cooling techniques. An international team of researchers (Germany, China) demonstrated an approach to create weakly bound ultracold polyatomic molecules by electroassociation in a degenerate Fermi gas of microwave-dressed polar molecules through a field-linked resonance. They created around weakly bound tetratomic (NaK)2 molecules more than 3,000 times colder than previously realized tetratomic molecules. They observed a maximum tetramer lifetime of 8(2)?ms in free space without a notable change in the presence of an optical dipole trap, indicating the tetramers were collisional stable. They imaged the dissociated tetramers to probe the anisotropy of their wavefunction in momentum space. Their result demonstrated a universal tool for assembling weakly bound ultracold polyatomic molecules from smaller polar molecules… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Electroassociation of field-linked tetramers. Credit: Nature, 31 January 2024