Seminarium Optyczne

Ultracold molecules of alkali atoms have been studied quite extensively for nearly three decades, providing invaluable information on collisional properties of constituent atoms. In recent years, the main focus has been on heteronuclear species in the absolute ro-vibrational ground state, as these molecules can exhibit long-range, relatively strong dipolar interactions enabled by the presence of an electric dipole moment.In this talk I will discuss our progress on the way to form ultracold ground state molecules of KCs. In particular, I will present experimental results confirming a decade-old theoretical prediction regarding the number of vibrational levels of one of the excited molecular potentials of Cs2.In the second part of the talk I will introduce new atomic mixtures that we are planning to investigate in the years to come, Cs+Ag and K+Ag, with the goal to eventually turn them into ultracold ground state molecules with enormous electric dipole moment (~10 Debye).