Observation of Bose-Einstein condensation of molecules.
We have observed Bose-Einstein condensation of molecules. When a spin mixture of fermionic 6Li atoms was evaporatively cooled in an optical dipole trap near a Feshbach resonance, the atomic gas was converted into 6Li2 molecules. Below 600 nK, a Bose-Einstein condensate of up to 900 000 molecules was identified by the sudden onset of a bimodal density distribution. This condensate realizes the limit of tightly bound fermion pairs in the crossover between BCS superfluidity and Bose-Einstein condensation.
Zwierlein
M W
MW
Department of Physics, MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms, and Research Laboratory of Electronics, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
Stan
C A
CA
Schunck
C H
CH
Raupach
S M F
SM
Gupta
S
S
Hadzibabic
Z
Z
Ketterle
W
W