Ultracold Heteronuclear Molecules in a 3D Optical Lattice

We report on the creation of ultracold heteronuclear molecules assembled from fermionic ⁴⁰K and bosonic ⁸⁷Rb atoms in a 3D optical lattice. Molecules are produced at a heteronuclear Feshbach resonance on both the attractive and the repulsive sides of the resonance. We precisely determine the binding energy of the heteronuclear molecules from rf spectroscopy across the Feshbach resonance. We characterize the lifetime of the molecular sample as a function of magnetic field and measure lifetimes between 20 and 120 ms. The efficiency of molecule creation via rf association is measured and is found to decrease as expected for more deeply bound molecules.