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
We extend a sincere welcome to Dr. Cangtao Yin from the University of Szeged as he joins our research team. Cangtao will collaborate with us and the Meuwly research group on the theoretical description of chemi-ionisation reactions.
We warmly greet Dr. Meissa Libasse Diouf as the newest addition to our research team as a postdoctoral researcher. He earned his Ph.D. from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and will be contributing to the QuTe experiment.
Our group
Research
Teaching
Open positions
- PhD position in molecular-ion quantum technologies
- PhD position in computational chemistry (reaction dynamics)
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. xx (2024), xxx
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"
(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"
(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., in press (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)