University of Rochester physicists have combined an atom-chiller with a molecule trap, creating for the first time a device that can generate and trap huge numbers of elusive-yet-valuable ultracold polar molecules.

Scientists believe ultracold polar molecules will allow them to create exotic artificial crystals and stable quantum computers. Quantum computer scientists are attracted to ultracold particles because their temperatures reduce decoherence, a phenomenon where a system decays from the carefully prepared quantum configuration it started with to a classical physics state, which loses all the advantages quantum computers hold.