Coherent Optical Creation of a Single Molecule

Yu, Yichao; Wang, Kenneth; Hood, Jonathan D.; Picard, Lewis R. B.; Zhang, Jessie T.; Cairncross, William B.; Hutson, Jeremy M.; Gonzalez-Ferez, Rosario; Rosenband, Till; Ni, Kang-Kuen

Abstract

We report coherent association of atoms into a single weakly bound NaCs molecule in an optical tweezer through an optical Raman transition. The Raman technique uses a deeply bound electronic excited intermediate state to achieve a large transition dipole moment while reducing photon scattering. Starting from two atoms in their relative motional ground state, we achieve an optical transfer efficiency of 69%. The molecules have a binding energy of 770.2 MHz at 8.83(2) G. This technique does not rely on Feshbach resonances or narrow excited-state lines and may allow a wide range of molecular species to be assembled atom by atom.

Citation

Yu, Y., Wang, K., Hood, J. D., Picard, L. R., Zhang, J. T., Cairncross, W. B., …Ni, K. (2021). Coherent Optical Creation of a Single Molecule. Physical Review X, 11(3), Article 031061. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevx.11.031061

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 12, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Sep 17, 2021
• Publication Date: 2021-09
• Deposit Date: Oct 7, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 2, 2021
• Journal: Physical Review X
• Publisher: American Physical Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 11
• Issue: 3
• Article Number: 031061
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevx.11.031061
• Related Public URLs: https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.09043