An optical tweezer array of ultracold polyatomic molecules

Nathaniel B Vilas; Paige Robichaud; Christian Hallas; Grace K Li; Loïc Anderegg; John M Doyle

doi:10.1038/s41586-024-07199-1

An optical tweezer array of ultracold polyatomic molecules

Nature. 2024 Apr;628(8007):282-286. doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07199-1. Epub 2024 Apr 3.

Authors

Nathaniel B Vilas^{1

2}, Paige Robichaud^{3

4}, Christian Hallas^{3

4}, Grace K Li^{3

4}, Loïc Anderegg^{3

4}, John M Doyle^{3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA. vilas@g.harvard.edu.
² Harvard-MIT Center for Ultracold Atoms, Cambridge, MA, USA. vilas@g.harvard.edu.
³ Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁴ Harvard-MIT Center for Ultracold Atoms, Cambridge, MA, USA.

PMID: 38570690
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07199-1

Abstract

Polyatomic molecules have rich structural features that make them uniquely suited to applications in quantum information science^1-3, quantum simulation^4-6, ultracold chemistry⁷ and searches for physics beyond the standard model^8-10. However, a key challenge is fully controlling both the internal quantum state and the motional degrees of freedom of the molecules. Here we demonstrate the creation of an optical tweezer array of individual polyatomic molecules, CaOH, with quantum control of their internal quantum state. The complex quantum structure of CaOH results in a non-trivial dependence of the molecules' behaviour on the tweezer light wavelength. We control this interaction and directly and non-destructively image individual molecules in the tweezer array with a fidelity greater than 90%. The molecules are manipulated at the single internal quantum state level, thus demonstrating coherent state control in a tweezer array. The platform demonstrated here will enable a variety of experiments using individual polyatomic molecules with arbitrary spatial arrangement.