Abstract
We demonstrate direct cooling of gaseous formaldehyde () to the microkelvin regime. Our approach, optoelectrical Sisyphus cooling, provides a simple dissipative cooling method applicable to electrically trapped dipolar molecules. By reducing the temperature by 3 orders of magnitude and increasing the phase-space density by a factor of , we generate an ensemble of molecules with a temperature of about , populating a single rotational state with more than 80% purity.
- Received 1 December 2015
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.063005
© 2016 American Physical Society
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Synopsis
Deep Freezing Molecules
Published 10 February 2016
Researchers cooled trapped molecules well below —a record temperature for molecules that have not been assembled from pre-cooled atoms.
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