Jonathan Hood

The goal of our experiment is to trap single ultracold molecules in optical tweezers with complete control of their internal and motional quantum states.  Ultracold dipolar molecules offer a number of exciting new prospects for quantum technologies and for studying and controlling quantum chemistry.  In our lab, we will assemble ultracold molecules from individual atoms using optical tweezers.  The experiment starts by loading exactly two atoms into separate optical tweezers and then cooling them to the lowest possible motional state: the ground state of the tweezer harmonic oscillator.  The two atoms are then adiabatically merged together, associated into a loosely-bound molecule, and then coherently transferred to a single deeply bound vibrational, rotational, and hyperfine state without motional heating.   The optical tweezer array of molecules can then be reconfigured to for example bring two molecules together for a quantum gate, or to bring two molecules together for a reaction, or even to create a fully filled lattice of molecules to simulate a quantum spin model.