The Willitsch Group - Cold and Controlled Molecules and Ions
Welcome to the Cold and Controlled Molecules and Ions group at the University of Basel led by Prof. Stefan Willitsch and the astrochemistry subgroup led by Dr Jutta Toscano. Our research is concerned with the preparation and control of cold molecules and molecular ions and their applications in both chemistry and physics. On this website, you can find information about our group, our research, our teaching and opportunities to join us.
Recent News
Congratulations to Richard Karl for being the runner-up for the Best Poster Award at the SCS Fall Meeting 2024. He presented his work on a precision spectroscopy experiment.
We are pleased to welcome our new PhD student, Xinyue Zhang, to the team. She obtained her master's degree from Chongqing University in China and will be participating in experiments involving the crossed-molecular-beam setup.
Read our paper on conformationally resolved chemi-ionisation reactions recently published in Nature Chemistry. Nat. Chem. (2024)
Read our new review article on Cold trapped molecular ions and hybrid platforms in Nature Physics
Our group
Research
Teaching
Open positions
- PhD position in molecular-ion quantum technologies
- PhD and Postdoc positions in cold molecules/cold chemistry
Recent publications
A. Mishra, J. Kim, S. K. Kim and S. Willitsch,
"Isomeric and rotational effects in the chemi-ionisation of 1,2-dibromoethene with metastable neon atoms"
Faraday Discuss. 251 (2024), 92
L. Ploenes, P. Stranák, A. Mishra, X. Liu, J. Pérez-Ríos and S. Willitsch,
"Collisional alignment and molecular rotation control chemi-ionization of individual conformers"
Nat. Chem. (2024) (arXiv:2401.11916)
J. Toscano,
"Rotational-state-selected Carbon Astrochemistry"
Chimia 78 (2024), 40
L. Xu, J. Toscano, and S. Willitsch,,
"Trapping and sympathetic cooling of conformationally selected molecular ions"
Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 083001(2024) (arXiv:2308.03935)
M. Weegen, M. Poggio and S. Willitsch,
"Coupling trapped ions to a nanomechanical oscillator"
Phys. Rev. Lett. (in press) (arXiv:2312.00576)
M. Deiß, S. Willitsch and J. H. Denschlag,
"Cold trapped molecular ions and hybrid platforms for ions and neutral particles"
Nat. Phys. 20 (2024), 713 (arXiv:2311.12640)
C. Mangeng, Y Yin, R. Karl, and S. Willitsch,
"Experimental implementation of laser cooling of trapped ions in strongly inhomogeneous magnetic fields"
Phys. Rev. Research 5, 043180 (2023) (arXiv:2309.03385)