Observation of microwave shielding of ultracold molecules

Abstract

<jats:title>Shielding ultracold molecules</jats:title> <jats:p> Ultracold molecules hold promise for a wide range of exciting applications. However, such applications are currently hampered by the limited number of ultracold molecular ensembles that can be created and by their short lifetimes. Anderegg <jats:italic>et al</jats:italic> . used a microwave dressing field to tune the collisional properties of calcium monofluoride molecules trapped in optical tweezers. This approach allowed a sixfold suppression of inelastic trap-loss collisions. This scheme paves the way for the creation of a variety of long-lived ultracold molecular ensembles. —YS </jats:p>