Towards a Molecular Quantum Gas Microscope

Recent years have seen rapid progress in creating and studying ultracold gases of polar molecules. These molecules are attractive candidates for quantum simulation of many-body systems, such as the XXZ model of quantum magnetism, due to their long-range anisotropic interactions and rich internal structure. Here we present our progress towards the construction of a new apparatus to perform site-resolved quantum gas microscopy on strongly-interacting dipolar $^{\mathrm{23}}$Na$^{\mathrm{87}}$Rb molecules confined within a 2D optical lattice. We will form the molecules by coherently assembling cold sodium and rubidium atoms from atomic Bose condensates. Our experiment features in-vacuum electrodes to tune the interactions between the molecules as well as a high-resolution objective for imaging. We plan to perform quantum gas microscopy by dissociating the molecules in a way sensitive to their rotational state, laser cooling the constituent atomic species, and detecting the scattered photons.