Nov. 14, 2012 A new cooling method for polyatomic molecules
paves the way for the investigation of molecular gases near
absolute zero temperature. The investigation of ultracold
molecules is of great interest for a number of problems. It
could lead to a better understanding of chemical reactions in
astrophysics. Ensembles of ultracold molecules could be used as
quantum simulators, single molecules as quantum bits for storage
of quantum information. Whereas efficient cooling methods have
already been demonstrated for the cooling of atoms down to the
nano-Kelvin regime, these methods fail for molecules due to
their rich internal structure. A team of scientists in the
Quantum Dynamics Division of Prof. Gerhard Rempe at the Max-
Planck-Institute of Quantum Optics has now developed a cooling
procedure -- the so-called optoelectrical Sisyphus cooling --
which for the first time offers the potential to reach these
ultralow temperatures even for complex polyatomic molecules. The
essential progress in the cooling of at