arXiv:2004.02848 · Science
Direct laser cooling of a symmetric top molecule
Debayan Mitra, Nathaniel B. Vilas, Christian Hallas, Loïc Anderegg, Benjamin L. Augenbraun, Louis Baum, Calder Miller, Shivam Raval, John M. Doyle
Abstract
molecules from 22 ± 1 millikelvin to 1.8 ± 0.7 millikelvin in one dimension and state-selectively cooling two nuclear spin isomers. These results demonstrate that the use of proper ro-vibronic transitions enables laser cooling of nonlinear molecules, thereby opening a path to efficient cooling of chiral molecules and, eventually, optical tweezer arrays of complex polyatomic species.