Towards production of Bosonic $^{41}$K$^{87}$Rb molecule in a 3-dimensional optical lattice

One of the major goals in the field of ultracold gases is the production of ultracold polar molecules. Due to anisotropic, long range interaction, a polar molecular gas is expected to show us a rich variety of new phenomena, including anisotropic collapse and a super-solid phase. Last year, JILA group have successfully created a high-phase space density gas of Fermionic polar molecules $^{40}$K$^{87}$Rb in the absolute ground state[1] Our goal is to explore a degenerate gas of Bosonic polar molecules. We prepare ultracold atomic gas mixture of $^{41}$K and $^{87}$Rb, and combine those atoms adiabatically to form molecules. Previously, we explored the basic properties of a gas of $^{41}$K, producing a $^{41}$K BEC of 3x10$^{5}$ atoms with a direct evaporation[2]. Here we report production of a quantum degenerate mixture of $^{87}$Rb and $^{41}$K atoms. This quantum degenerate mixture of atoms should be converted into Bosonic polar molecules in the absolute ground state via combination of Feshbach association and STIRAP performed in a 3D optical lattice. [1] K.-K. Ni et al., Science 322, 231 - 235 (2008) [2]T. Kishimoto et al., arXiv:0812.4335 (2008)