Optical production of ultracold polar molecules

We present recent work resulting in the production of ultracold, polar RbCs molecules in their absolute vibronic ground state. The production process consists of several steps: photoassociation of laser‐cooled atoms; radiative stabilization of the resulting molecules; identification of the resulting population distribution; and laser‐stimulated stale transfer lo the vibrational ground state. We discuss the properties of the resulting sample of of X1Σ+(ν = 0) molecules, with a view to the future directions of these experiments.