Edward Pollack Distinguished Lecture Series

The past decade there has been a tremendous progress in experiments with single trapped ions. Presently, e.g., the most precise optical frequencies have been measured with single atomic ions, and the furthest advances towards the realization of practical quantum computing are based on single ionic species. Experiments with single molecular ions have likewise made impressive advances the past years, e.g., with the demonstration of single ion reaction experiments, and with the development of internal state preparation methods suitable for single ions. Besides reviewing some single molecular ion experiments carried out at the Aarhus University, I will discuss the perspectives for the next generation of single molecular ion experiments including femtosecond-laser internal state manipulation and ultracold ion chemistry, i.e. chemistry in the microkelvin regime.