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.

Let’s congratulate Dr. Patrik Stranak for his successful Ph.D. defence. The title of his talk was “Exploring conformationally and state-resolved ionic and neutral reactions”.

Mudit receives the Faculty Prize for the best PhD thesis from our university’s president Prof. Andrea Schenker-Wicki.

Meet our group

Course materials for FS23 on ADAM:
Physikalische Chemie III - Molekulare Quantenmechanik und Spektroskopie

• PhD position in conformationally controlled chemistry
• PhD and postdoc positions in molecular-ion quantum technologies

More information

A. Voute, A. Dörfler, L. Wiesenfeld, O. Dulieu, F. Gatti, D. Peláez and S. Willitsch,
"Charge transfer of polyatomic molecules in ion-atom hybrid traps: Stereodynamics in the millikelvin regime"
(arXiv:2303.15327)

A. Kilaj, S. Käser, J. Wang, P. Straňák, M. Schwilk, L. Xu, O. A. v. Lilienfeld, J. Küpper, M. Meuwly, and S. Willitsch, "Conformational and state-specific effects in reactions of 2,3-dibromobutadiene with Coulomb-crystallized calcium ions"
(arXiv:2303.11813)

R. Karl, Y. Yin and S. Willitsch,
"Laser Cooling of Trapped Ions in Strongly Inhomogeneous Magnetic Fields"
(arXiv:2212.11863)

X. Xing, H. D. Silva Jr, R. Vexiau, N. B. Maafa, S. Willitsch and O. Dulieu, 
"Ion loss events in a cold Rb-Ca⁺ hybrid trap: photodissociation, black-body radiation and non-radiative charge exchange"
 Phy. Rev A 106, 062809 (2022) 

M. Sinhal, A. Johnson and S. Willitsch, 
"Frequency stabilisation and SI tracing of mid-infrared quantum-cascade lasers for precision molecular spectroscopy"
Mol. Phys. e2144519 (2022) 

M. Bertrand , A. Shlykov, M. Shahmohamadi, M. Beck , S. Willitsch and J. Faist,
"High-Power, Narrow-Linewidth Distributed-Feedback Quantum-Cascade Laser for Molecular Spectroscopy"
Photonics 9 (2022), 589

More publications