On Wednesday 11th of October our weekly AMOPP seminar was given by Dr. Martin Zeppenfeld from the Rempe Group at the Max Planck institute for quantum optics in Garching, Germany. His talk focused on their experiments involving the manipulation of cold polar molecules which Dr. Zeppenfeld leads. You can visit their website to find out more about their research, and the abstract for his talk is given below.

Abstract:

Polar molecules offer fascinating opportunities for quantum experiments at cold and ultracold temperatures. For example, chemistry at low temperatures features new possibilities such as controlling chemical reactions via electric and magnetic fields or observing reactions based on tunneling through a reaction barrier. Precision measurements on molecules provide insight into fundamental physics, allowing investigation of physics beyond the standard model. Attaining sufficient control over molecules provides opportunities for quantum simulations and quantum information processing.

In my talk I will present two aspects of our work on polar molecules. First, I will present our toolbox of techniques to produce molecule ensembles at very low temperatures. This includes centrifuge deceleration of cryogenic-buffer-gas cooled molecular beams as well as optoelectrical Sisyphus cooling of formaldehyde to sub-millikelvin temperatures. Second, I will present our progress towards quantum experiments coupling polar molecules to Rydberg atoms. As a first step, we have investigated electric field controlled collisions between polar molecules.