The first step towards realization of molecular condensate

A group at the University of Texas at Austin has recently created Rb2 molecules from a Rubidium-87 Bose-einstein condensate with two-photon stimulated Raman transitions. The molecules are in a single ro-vibrational level and have a temperature on the order of 100 nK. These might be the coldest molecules in the universe, as says Paul Julienne, a senior atomic physicist at NIST. This method provides an alternative route for formation of ultra-cold molecules which ware still not achievable with the traditional laser cooling and trapping techniques, and may lead to the first realization of molecular Bose-Einstein condensate