Direct laser cooling of molecules

Cooling molecules with lasers is harder than cooling individual atoms with lasers. The very process of laser cooling, in which atoms are buffeted by thousands of photons, was thought by many to be impossible for molecules since photons, instead of slowing and cooling the molecules, could actually excite internal motions such as rotations and vibrations. Consequently, to get cold molecules one method is to first cool atoms and then combine them into molecules. Now physicists have developed a way to cool molecules directly with laser light using three lasers instead of the two typically needed for atoms.

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