Resonant collisional shielding of reactive molecules using electric fields

Abstract

Full control of molecular interactions, including reactive losses, would open new frontiers in quantum science. Here, we demonstrate extreme tunability of chemical reaction rates by using an external electric field to shift excited collision channels of ultracold molecules into degeneracy with the initial collision channel. In this situation, resonant dipolar interactions mix the channels at long range, dramatically altering the intermolecular potential. We prepare fermionic potassium-rubidium (KRb) molecules in their first excited rotational state and observe a three orders-of-magnitude modulation of the chemical reaction rate as we tune the electric field strength by a few percent across resonance. In a quasi-two-dimensional geometry, we accurately determine the contributions from the three lowest angular momentum projections of the collisions. Using the resonant features, we shield the molecules from loss and suppress the reaction rate by up to an order of magnitude below the background value, realizing a long-lived sample of polar molecules in large electric fields.

17+4 pages, 4+1 figures

References in corpus (17)

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• Creation of ultracold ${}^{87}$RbCs molecules in the rovibrational ground state
• Coherent dipole-dipole coupling between two single atoms at a Förster resonance
• Resonant collisional shielding of reactive molecules using electric fields
• Repulsive shield between polar molecules
• Dipolar evaporation of reactive molecules to below the Fermi temperature
• Strong dependence of ultracold chemical rates on electric dipole moments
• Cold N+NH Collisions in a Magnetic Trap
• Dynamics of ultracold molecules in confined geometry and electric field
• Synthesis of mixed hypermetallic oxide BaOCa${}^{+}$ from laser-cooled reagents in an atom-ion hybrid trap
• Adimensional theory of shielding in ultracold collisions of dipolar rotors
• Tuning ultracold collisions of excited rotational dipolar molecules
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Cited by in corpus (69)

• Long-range interacting quantum systems
• Evaporation of microwave-shielded polar molecules to quantum degeneracy
• Observation of Bose-Einstein Condensation of Dipolar Molecules
• Assembly of a rovibrational ground state molecule in an optical tweezer
• Resonant collisional shielding of reactive molecules using electric fields
• Quantum state manipulation and cooling of ultracold molecules
• Tuning of dipolar interactions and evaporative cooling in a three-dimensional molecular quantum gas
• Bimolecular chemistry in the ultracold regime
• Laser cooled molecules
• Collisions of ultracold molecules in bright and dark optical dipole traps
• Self-bound dipolar droplets and supersolids in molecular Bose-Einstein condensates
• Control of reactive collisions by quantum interference
• Collisionally Stable Gas of Bosonic Dipolar Ground State Molecules
• Tunable itinerant spin dynamics with polar molecules
• Ultracold Gas of Dipolar NaCs Ground State Molecules
• Laser cooling for quantum gases
• Collisions Between Ultracold Molecules and Atoms in a Magnetic Trap
• Microwave shielding of bosonic NaRb molecules
• High Phase-Space Density of Laser-Cooled Molecules in an Optical Lattice
• A Feshbach resonance in collisions between ultracold ground state molecules
• Field-linked resonances of polar molecules
• Reactions Between Layer-Resolved Molecules Mediated by Dipolar Exchange
• Blue-Detuned Magneto-Optical Trap of Molecules
• Optical cycling of AlF molecules
• Magnetic Feshbach resonances in collisions of ${}^{23}$Na${}^{40}$K with ${}^{40}$K
• Quantum state resolved molecular dipolar collisions over four decades of energy
• Effective potential and superfluidity of microwave-dressed polar molecules
• Diatomic molecules of alkali-metal and alkaline-earth-metal atoms: interaction potentials, dipole moments, and polarizabilities
• Seconds-scale coherence on nuclear spin transitions of ultracold polar molecules in 3D optical lattices
• Observation of generalized t-J spin dynamics with tunable dipolar interactions
• A High Phase-Space Density Gas of NaCs Feshbach Molecules
• Resonant and first-order dipolar interactions between ultracold molecules in static and microwave electric fields
• Collisional losses of ultracold molecules due to intermediate complex formation
• Double Microwave Shielding
• Shielding collisions of ultracold CaF molecules with static electric fields
• SU(N) magnetism with ultracold molecules
• Observation of resonant dipolar collisions in ultracold ${}^{23}$Na${}^{87}$Rb rotational mixtures
• Three-Body Recombination of Ultracold Microwave-Shielded Polar Molecules
• Two-photon optical shielding of collisions between ultracold polar molecules
• Four-body singlet potential energy surface for reactions of calcium monofluoride
• Interaction potentials, electric moments, polarizabilities, and chemical reactions of YbCu, YbAg, and YbAu molecules
• Controlling collisional loss and scattering lengths of ultracold dipolar molecules with static electric fields
• Efficient Pathway to NaCs Ground State Molecules
• Rotational-state dependence of interactions between polar molecules
• Observation of Microwave Shielding of Ultracold Molecules
• Symmetry breaking in sticky collisions between ultracold molecules
• Collisions of Spin-polarized YO Molecules for Single Partial Waves
• Chemical reactions of ultracold alkaline-earth-metal diatomic molecules
• Anisotropic acoustics in dipolar Fermi gases
• SU($N$) symmetry with ultracold alkali dimers: weak dependence of scattering properties on hyperfine state
• Resonances in non-universal dipolar collisions
• Spin Squeezing with Itinerant Dipoles: A Case for Shallow Lattices
• An Electro-Optical Trap for Polar Molecules
• Engineering long-range interactions between ultracold atoms with light
• Ultracold Interactions between Ions and Polar Molecules
• Near-threshold scaling of resonant inelastic collisions at ultralow temperatures
• Effective potential and scattering length of shielding polar molecules
• Broad Feshbach resonance with a large background scattering length in a fermionic atom-molecule mixture
• Molecule-molecule and atom-molecule collisions with ultracold RbCs molecules
• Ultracold coherent control of molecular collisions at a Förster resonance
• Rigorous quantum calculations for atom-molecule chemical reactions in electric fields: from single to multiple partial wave regimes
• Formation of ultracold triatomic molecules by electric microwave association
• Narrowline Laser Cooling and Spectroscopy of Molecules via Stark States
• Metastable ferromagnetic clusters in dissipative many-body systems of polar molecules
• Hyperfine van der Waals repulsion between open-shell polar molecules
• Strongly dipolar molecular Bose-Einstein condensates: From few- to many-body physics
• Analogue Black Holes in Reactive Molecules
• Model for two-body collisions between ultracold dipolar molecules around a Förster resonance in an electric field
• Ab initio study of the reactivity of ultracold RbSr$+$RbSr collisions