Sympathetic Cooling of Complex Molecular Ions to Millikelvin Temperatures

Gas-phase singly protonated organic molecules of mass 410 Da (Alexa Fluor 350) have been cooled from ambient temperature to the hundred millikelvin range by Coulomb interaction with laser-cooled barium ions. The molecules were generated by an electrospray ionization source, transferred to and stored in a radio-frequency trap together with the atomic ions. Observations are well described by molecular dynamics simulations, which are used to determine the spatial distribution and thermal energy of the molecules. In one example, an ensemble of 830 laser-cooled ¹³⁸Ba⁺ ions cooled 200 molecular ions to less than 115 mK. The demonstrated technique should allow a large variety of protonated molecules to be sympathetically cooled, including molecules of much higher mass, such as proteins.