Physicists achieve elusive 'evaporative cooling' of molecules
Wednesday, December 19, 2012 - 18:01
in Physics & Chemistry
Achieving a goal considered nearly impossible, physicists have chilled a gas of molecules to very low temperatures by adapting the familiar process by which a hot cup of coffee cools. Evaporative cooling has long been used to cool atoms to extraordinarily low temperatures. The process was used in 1995 to create the Bose-Einstein condensate. The latest demonstration marks the first time evaporative cooling has been achieved with molecules.