Towards site-resolved microscopy of NaRb molecules in an optical lattice

Ultracold molecules are a promising platform for quantum simulation of many-body physics due to their long-range interactions and rich set of quantum states. However, their complex internal structure and fast two-body loss rates also pose experimental challenges for quantum simulation. Here, we describe our approach to create and detect individual bosonic NaRb molecules in a 2D optical lattice. Starting from a mixture of sodium and rubidium atoms, we prepare quasi-2D condensates of each species using a light sheet optical potential combined with a tightly focused, bichromatic "dimple" trap. We load the degenerate mixture into a 2D optical lattice, where the atoms can be bound into Feshbach molecules. Each molecule can then be detected by dissociating the molecule and performing site-resolved fluorescence imaging of the constituent rubidium atoms. In the future, we will coherently transfer the molecules into their absolute ground state, setting the stage for studying quantum magnetism with interacting dipolar molecules at the single-particle level.