1. INTRODUCTION Beams of atoms and molecules are stalwart tools for spectroscopy and
studies of collisional processes. 1− 4 The supersonic expansion technique can create cold …

Over the past decade, and particularly the past five years, a quiet revolution has been
building at the border between atomic physics and experimental quantum chemistry. The …

This paper presents a review of the current state of the art in the research field of cold and
ultracold molecules. It serves as an introduction to the focus issue ofNew Journal of Physics …

We demonstrate and characterize a cryogenic buffer gas-cooled molecular beam source
capable of producing bright beams of free radicals and refractory species. Details of the …

Cold molecules promise to reveal a rich set of novel collision dynamics in the low-energy
regime. By combining for the first time the techniques of Stark deceleration, magnetic …

We explore the quantum dynamics of nuclear spin relaxation in cold collisions of 1Σ+
molecules with structureless atoms in an external magnetic field. To this end, we develop a …

Laser cooling and trapping are central to modern atomic physics. It has been roughly three
decades since laser cooling techniques produced ultracold atoms, leading to rapid …

Using cryogenic helium buffer-gas cooling, we have prepared dense samples of atomic
lithium and molecular calcium monohydride at temperatures as low as 1 K. We have …

We produce YbF molecules with a density of 10 18 m-3 using laser ablation inside a
cryogenically cooled cell filled with a helium buffer gas. Using absorption imaging and …

We propose a general technique to produce cold spin-polarized molecules in the electronic
states of Σ symmetry, in which rotationally excited levels are first populated by coherent …