2 November 2021
A stationary molecule is easy to study. In Groningen, a molecule was brought to rest with ice-cold gas and electric fields.
Physicists have brought heavy molecules to rest in a 4.5-meter vacuum tube. Amsterdam and Groningen researchers from the Nikhef collaboration developed a molecule decelerator for this purpose which they can use to bring molecules to rest with electric fields. As a demonstration the researchers brought strontium-fluorine molecules to rest. These are the heaviest molecules ever stopped using this technique. The results appeared recently in Physical Review Letters.
Source: NRC