Towards a Quantum Gas Microscope for Laser-Cooled Molecules

Ultracold molecules, with their rich internal structure and long-range dipolar interactions, could be a powerful new quantum platform for many applications ranging from quantum simulation to quantum information processing. Here we present our progress towards building a quantum gas microscope for laser-cooled CaF molecules, including work on molecular beam-slowing, magneto-optical trapping and deep laser cooling of CaF molecules. Our apparatus will combine a rearrangeable optical tweezer array along with an optical lattice, which will enable single-molecule readout and control as well as provide clean optical trapping potentials. The rearrangeable tweezers will allow us to initialize large 2D arrays of molecules in arbitrary spatial configurations, while the optical lattice will provide disorder-free trapping potentials that could permit highly coherent interactions. Together, they could provide a pristine platform to study interacting lattice spin Hamiltonians and to explore quantum information processing with molecular qubits.