Scientists produce an extremely cold gas of organic polar molecules
The study of ultracold molecules is a science of its own. Ultracold molecules provide the possibility to investigate fundamental chemical processes or to explore physics beyond the standard model of particle physics. The only snag is the fact that molecules are very difficult to cool down to really low temperatures because of their manifold vibrational and rotational states. A team of scientists led by Dr. Martin Zeppenfeld from the Quantum Dynamics Division of Prof. Gerhard Rempe at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching has now made a virtue of necessity: the so-called optoelectrical Sisyphus technique, developed in the group, exploits the polarity of formaldehyde molecules, while reaching temperatures as low as 420 micro-Kelvin.