• DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.123402
• Corpus ID: 231419050

Assembly of a Rovibrational Ground State Molecule in an Optical Tweezer.

@article{Cairncross2021AssemblyOA,
  title={Assembly of a Rovibrational Ground State Molecule in an Optical Tweezer.},
  author={William B. Cairncross and Jessie T. Zhang and Lewis R. B. Picard and Yi-Fu Yu and Kenneth Wang and Kang-Kuen Ni},
  journal={Physical review letters},
  year={2021},
  volume={126 12},
  pages={
          123402
        }
}

• W. Cairncross, Jessie T. Zhang, +3 authors K. Ni
• Published 8 January 2021
• Physics
• Physical review letters

We demonstrate the coherent creation of a single NaCs molecule in its rotational, vibrational, and electronic (rovibronic) ground state in an optical tweezer. Starting with a weakly bound Feshbach molecule, we locate a two-photon transition via the |c^{3}Σ_{1},v^{'}=26⟩ excited state and drive coherent Rabi oscillations between the Feshbach state and a single hyperfine level of the NaCs rovibronic ground state |X^{1}Σ,v^{''}=0,N^{''}=0⟩ with a binding energy of D_{0}=h×147044.63(11)  GHz. We measure a lifetime of 3.4±1.6  s for the rovibronic ground state molecule, which possesses a large molecule-frame dipole moment of 4.6D and occupies predominantly the motional ground state. These long-lived, fully quantum-state-controlled individual dipolar molecules provide a key resource for molecule-based quantum simulation and information processing.