Observation of microwave shielding of ultracold molecules

Loïc Anderegg; Sean Burchesky; Yicheng Bao; Scarlett S Yu; Tijs Karman; Eunmi Chae; Kang-Kuen Ni; Wolfgang Ketterle; John M Doyle

doi:10.1126/science.abg9502

Observation of microwave shielding of ultracold molecules

Science. 2021 Aug 13;373(6556):779-782. doi: 10.1126/science.abg9502.

Authors

Loïc Anderegg^{1

2}, Sean Burchesky^{3

2}, Yicheng Bao^{3

2}, Scarlett S Yu^{3

2}, Tijs Karman^{4

5}, Eunmi Chae⁶, Kang-Kuen Ni^{3

2

7}, Wolfgang Ketterle^{2

8}, John M Doyle^{3

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA. anderegg@g.harvard.edu.
² Harvard-MIT Center for Ultracold Atoms, Cambridge, MA, USA.
³ Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁴ ITAMP, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁵ Radboud University, Institute for Molecules and Materials, Heijendaalseweg 135, 6525 AJ Nijmegen, Netherlands.
⁶ Department of Physics, Korea University, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
⁷ Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁸ Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.

PMID: 34385393
DOI: 10.1126/science.abg9502

Abstract

Harnessing the potential wide-ranging quantum science applications of molecules will require control of their interactions. Here, we used microwave radiation to directly engineer and tune the interaction potentials between ultracold calcium monofluoride (CaF) molecules. By merging two optical tweezers, each containing a single molecule, we probed collisions in three dimensions. The correct combination of microwave frequency and power created an effective repulsive shield, which suppressed the inelastic loss rate by a factor of six, in agreement with theoretical calculations. The demonstrated microwave shielding shows a general route to the creation of long-lived, dense samples of ultracold polar molecules and evaporative cooling.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.