Pure Gas of Optically Trapped Molecules Created from Fermionic Atoms

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the creation of a pure, stable gas of optically trapped molecules from fermionic 6Li atoms, using a novel purification method and exploring magnetic field effects.

Contribution

It introduces a method to produce and purify a large sample of optically trapped molecules from fermionic atoms and studies their stability near a Feshbach resonance.

Findings

Successful creation of up to 3x10^5 molecules

Efficient removal of atoms using Stern-Gerlach technique

Remarkable stability of weakly bound molecules near resonance

Abstract

We report on the production of a pure sample of up to 3x10^5 optically trapped molecules from a Fermi gas of 6Li atoms. The dimers are formed by three-body recombination near a Feshbach resonance. For purification a Stern-Gerlach selection technique is used that efficiently removes all trapped atoms from the atom-molecule mixture. The behavior of the purified molecular sample shows a striking dependence on the applied magnetic field. For very weakly bound molecules near the Feshbach resonance, the gas exhibits a remarkable stability with respect to collisional decay.