BEIJING, May 8 (Reporter Liu Xia) - Precisely controlling individual multi-atom molecules holds the promise of significant breakthroughs in many fields. However, the key challenge in achieving this lies in fully controlling the internal quantum states and motion degrees of freedom of molecules. In a recent study, physicists at Harvard University in the United States successfully trapped individual multi-atom molecules in an optical tweezers array and directly imaged a single molecule in the optical tweezers array with over 90% fidelity. The related paper was published in the latest issue of the journal "Nature."
Cooling atoms to extremely low temperatures can control their energy states, fostering and advancing technologies such as atomic clocks. Physicists speculated that implementing similar operations on molecules might yield similar results. However, it turned out that controlling molecules in the same way faces significant challenges due to additional factors like rotation and vibration. Scientists had previously been able to control some molecules with only two atoms, but had not found a way to control molecules with more atoms. In the latest study, scientists discovered a method to successfully control molecules with three atoms.
Researchers first isolated several molecules in a vacuum chamber cooled to slightly below 0.0001 Kelvin, and then used an optical tweezers array to separate them, enabling control of individual molecules. Subsequently, they used another laser beam to manipulate a single molecule into the desired quantum state, thereby controlling its vibration, rotation, and nuclear spin. They then imaged the molecule again to gather more information about the results of the operation. The results showed that they could directly image a single molecule in the optical tweezers array with over 90% fidelity. The research team believes that the latest technology can be applied to other three-atom molecules, opening up new avenues for the study of multi-atom molecules.
