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Lasers and optical elements used to cool temperatures
An optical bench in the Will Lab at Columbia University containing a series of lasers and optical elements used in experiments to cool molecules to nanokelvin temperatures. Researchers in the lab created the first-ever Bose-Einstein condensate made from molecules, which was cooled to just 5 nanoKelvin, or about 459.66 degrees Fahrenheit, and stable for a strikingly long period of two seconds.
[Research supported by U.S. National Science Foundation grant PHY 1848466.]
Learn more in the NSF Discovery Files story Physicists create first-ever Bose-Einstein condensate made of molecules. (Date of image: Sept. 13, 2022; date originally posted to NSF Multimedia Gallery: July 15, 2024)
Credit: Sebastian Will/Will Lab/Columbia University
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