Creating and confining ultracold polar molecules*

We describe our work on the creation of ultracold (T$\sim $ 200 $\mu $K) NaCs molecules. Our experiments start with electronic ground-state NaCs molecules created by photoassociation of laser cooled and trapped Na and Cs atomic vapors held in a two-species magneto-optical trap. Using state-resolved photoassociation followed by resonantly enhanced multi-photon ionization we have carried out a detailed spectroscopic study of this system and show that a significant number of deeply bound singlet-state molecules can be created. We then describe our recent success in trapping the singlet molecules. Finally, we discuss approaches to manipulate the state of these molecules using a laser-controlled state transfer scheme.