Evaporation of microwave-shielded polar molecules to quantum degeneracy.

ABSTRACT: Ultracold polar molecules offer strong electric dipole moments and rich internal structure, which makes them ideal building blocks to explore exotic quantum matter^1-9, implement quantum information schemes^10-12 and test the fundamental symmetries of nature¹³. Realizing their full potential requires cooling interacting molecular gases deeply into the quantum-degenerate regime. However, the intrinsically unstable collisions between molecules at short range have so far prevented direct cooling through elastic collisions to quantum degeneracy in three dimensions. Here we demonstrate evaporative cooling of a three-dimensional gas of fermionic sodium-potassium molecules to well below the Fermi temperature using microwave shielding. The molecules are protected fro

SUBMITTER: Schindewolf A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9329123 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature