Controlling the Hyperfine State of Rovibronic Ground-State Polar Molecules
- 20 January 2010
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review Letters
- Vol. 104 (3), 030402
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.104.030402
Abstract
We report the preparation of a rovibronic ground-state molecular quantum gas in a single hyperfine state and, in particular, the absolute lowest quantum state. This addresses the last internal degree of freedom remaining after the recent production of a near quantum degenerate gas of molecules in their rovibronic ground state, and provides a crucial step towards full control over molecular quantum gases. We demonstrate a scheme that is general for bialkali polar molecules and allows the preparation of molecules in a single hyperfine state or in an arbitrary coherent superposition of hyperfine states. The scheme relies on electric-dipole, two-photon microwave transitions through rotationally excited states and makes use of electric nuclear quadrupole interactions to transfer molecular population between different hyperfine states.This publication has 20 references indexed in Scilit:
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