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Evaporation of microwave-shielded polar molecules to quantum degeneracy

Author

Listed:
  • Andreas Schindewolf

    (Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik
    Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology)

  • Roman Bause

    (Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik
    Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology)

  • Xing-Yan Chen

    (Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik
    Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology)

  • Marcel Duda

    (Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik
    Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology)

  • Tijs Karman

    (Radboud University)

  • Immanuel Bloch

    (Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik
    Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology
    Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität)

  • Xin-Yu Luo

    (Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik
    Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology)

Abstract

Ultracold polar molecules offer strong electric dipole moments and rich internal structure, which makes them ideal building blocks to explore exotic quantum matter1–9, implement quantum information schemes10–12 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 from reaching short range with a repulsive barrier engineered by coupling rotational states with a blue-detuned circularly polarized microwave. The microwave dressing induces strong tunable dipolar interactions between the molecules, leading to high elastic collision rates that can exceed the inelastic ones by at least a factor of 460. This large elastic-to-inelastic collision ratio allows us to cool the molecular gas to 21 nanokelvin, corresponding to 0.36 times the Fermi temperature. Such cold and dense samples of polar molecules open the path to the exploration of many-body phenomena with strong dipolar interactions.

Suggested Citation

  • Andreas Schindewolf & Roman Bause & Xing-Yan Chen & Marcel Duda & Tijs Karman & Immanuel Bloch & Xin-Yu Luo, 2022. "Evaporation of microwave-shielded polar molecules to quantum degeneracy," Nature, Nature, vol. 607(7920), pages 677-681, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:607:y:2022:i:7920:d:10.1038_s41586-022-04900-0
    DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04900-0
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    Cited by:

    1. J. Sánchez-Baena & C. Politi & F. Maucher & F. Ferlaino & T. Pohl, 2023. "Heating a dipolar quantum fluid into a solid," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-6, December.

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