Observation of Bose-Einstein Condensation of Molecules

Zwierlein, M. W.; Stan, C. A.; Schunck, C. H.; Raupach, S. M. F.; Gupta, S.; Hadzibabic, Z.; Ketterle, W.

Observation of Bose-Einstein Condensation of Molecules

Authors

Description

We have observed Bose-Einstein condensation of molecules. When a spin mixture of fermionic Li-6 atoms was evaporatively cooled in an optical dipole trap near a Feshbach resonance, the atomic gas was converted into Li_2 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.
4 pages, 3 figures