Raman Sideband Cooling of Molecules in an Optical Tweezer Array to the 3D Motional Ground State

Abstract

Ultracold polar molecules are promising for quantum information processing and searches for physics beyond the standard model. Laser cooling to ultracold temperatures is an established technique for trapped diatomic and triatomic molecules. Further cooling of the molecules to near the motional ground state is crucial for reducing various dephasings in quantum and precision applications. In this work, we demonstrate Raman sideband cooling (RSC) of CaF molecules in optical tweezers to near their motional ground state, with average motional occupation quantum numbers of n¯x=0.16(12), n¯y=0.17(17) (radial directions), and n¯z=0.22(16) (axial direction), and a 3-D motional-ground-state probability of 54±18% of the molecules that survive the RSC. This process paves the way to increase molecular coherence times in optical tweezers for robust quantum computation and simulation applications. Published by the American Physical Society 2024