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arXiv:cond-mat/0510755 · Physical Review Letters

Long-Lived Feshbach Molecules in a Three-Dimensional Optical Lattice

Gregor Thalhammer, Klaus Winkler, Florian J. W. Lang, S. Schmid, Rudolf Grimm, Johannes Hecker Denschlag

Published Feb 8, 2006• 166 citations
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Abstract

We have created and trapped a pure sample of Feshbach molecules in a three-dimensional optical lattice. Compared to previous experiments without a lattice, we find dramatic improvements such as long lifetimes of up to 700 ms and a near unit efficiency for converting tightly confined atom pairs into molecules. The lattice shields the trapped molecules from collisions and, thus, overcomes the problem of inelastic decay by vibrational quenching. Furthermore, we have developed an advanced purification scheme that removes residual atoms, resulting in a lattice in which individual sites are either empty or filled with a single molecule in the vibrational ground state of the lattice.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.96.050402

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We have converted an ultracold Fermi gas of 6Li^{6}\mathrm{L}\mathrm{i}6Li atoms into an ultracold gas of 6Li2^{6}\mathrm{L}\mathrm{i}_{2}6Li2​ molecules by adiabatic passage through a Feshbach resonance. Approximately $1.5\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{5}$ molecules in the least-bound, v=38v=38v=38, vibrational level of the ${X}^{1}{\ensuremath{\Sigma}}_{g}^{+}$ singlet state are produced with an efficiency of 50%. The molecules remain confined in an optical trap for times of up to 1 s before we dissociate them by a reverse adiabatic sweep.
We prepare a quantum state where each site of an optical lattice is occupied by exactly one molecule. This is the same quantum state as in a Mott insulator of molecules in the limit of negligible tunneling. Unlike previous Mott insulators, our system consists of molecules which can collide inelastically. In the absence of the optical lattice these collisions would lead to fast loss of the molecules from the sample. To prepare the state, we start from a Mott insulator of atomic 87Rb with a central region, where each lattice site is occupied by exactly two atoms. We then associate molecules using a Feshbach resonance. Remaining atoms can be removed using blast light. Our method does not rely on the molecule‐molecule interaction properties and is therefore applicable to many systems.
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We report on the production of a pure sample of up to 3 x 10(5) optically trapped molecules from a Fermi gas of 6Li atoms. The dimers are formed by three-body recombination near a Feshbach resonance. For purification, a Stern-Gerlach selection technique is used that efficiently removes all trapped atoms from the atom-molecule mixture. The behavior of the purified molecular sample shows a striking dependence on the applied magnetic field. For very weakly bound molecules near the Feshbach resonance, the gas exhibits a remarkable stability with respect to collisional decay.
Using a Feshbach resonance, we create ultracold fermionic molecules starting from a Bose-Fermi atom gas mixture. The resulting mixture of atoms and weakly bound molecules provides a rich system for studying few-body collisions because of the variety of atomic collision partners for molecules; either bosonic, fermionic, or distinguishable atoms. Inelastic loss of the molecules near the Feshbach resonance is dramatically affected by the quantum statistics of the colliding particles and the scattering length. In particular, we observe a molecule lifetime as long as 100 ms near the Feshbach resonance.