Magneto-optical trapping and sub-Doppler cooling of a polyatomic molecule
Magneto-optical trapping and sub-Doppler cooling of a polyatomic molecule
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DOI：
10.1038/s41586-022-04620-5
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发表时间：
2022-06-02
期刊：
影响因子：
64.8
通讯作者：
Doyle, John M.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Vilas, Nathaniel B.;Hallas, Christian;Doyle, John M.
激光冷却和捕获（1，2），特别是磁光捕获方法（2），使科学取得了突破性进展，包括玻色-爱因斯坦凝聚（3-5），中性原子量子计算（6，7）和高精度光学时钟（8）。最近，双原子分子的磁光阱（MOT）已经被证明（9-12），为量子模拟研究（13）和标准模型之外的物理研究（14）提供了途径。与双原子分子相比，多原子分子具有不同的转动自由度和振动自由度，这使得多原子分子具有多种转变的可能性。例如，超冷多原子分子将特别适合于量子计算和模拟（15-17），超冷碰撞（18），量子化学（19）和超越标准模型搜索（20，21）的应用。然而，这些分子的复杂性，到目前为止，排除了实现MOTs的多原子物种。在这里，我们证明了磁光捕获的多原子分子，氢氧化钙（CaOH）。捕获后，分子在蓝色失谐光学糖蜜激光冷却到110 μ K的温度，这是低于多普勒冷却极限。这里实现的温度和密度使CaOH成为各种量子科学应用的可行候选者，包括使用光镊阵列的量子模拟和计算（15，17，22，23）。这项工作还表明，激光冷却和磁光捕获许多其他多原子物种（24-27）将是可行的和实用的。
Laser cooling and trapping(1,2), and magneto-optical trapping methods in particular(2), have enabled groundbreaking advances in science, including Bose-Einstein condensation(3-5), quantum computation with neutral atoms(6,7) and high-precision optical clocks(8). Recently, magneto-optical traps (MOTs) of diatomic molecules have been demonstrated(9-12), providing access to research in quantum simulation(13) and searches for physics beyond the standard model(14). Compared with diatomic molecules, polyatomic molecules have distinct rotational and vibrational degrees of freedomthat promise a variety of transformational possibilities. For example, ultracold polyatomic molecules would be uniquely suited to applications in quantum computation and simulation(15-17), ultracold collisions(18), quantum chemistry(19) and beyond-the-standard-model searches(20,21). However, the complexity of these molecules has so far precluded the realization of MOTs for polyatomic species. Here we demonstrate magneto-optical trapping of a polyatomic molecule, calcium monohydroxide (CaOH). After trapping, the molecules are laser cooled in a blue-detuned optical molasses to a temperature of 110 mu K, which is below the Doppler cooling limit. The temperatures and densities achieved here make CaOH a viable candidate for a wide variety of quantum science applications, including quantum simulation and computation using optical tweezer arrays(15,17,22,23). This work also suggests that laser cooling and magneto-optical trapping of many other polyatomic species(24-27) will be bothfeasible and practical.