Quantum Degenerate Dipolar Fermi Gas

We report the first quantum degenerate dipolar Fermi gas, the realization of which opens a new frontier for exploring strongly correlated physics and, in particular, quantum liquid crystalline phases. A quantum degenerate Fermi gas of the most magnetic atom Dy-161 is produced by laser cooling to 10 mu K before sympathetically cooling with ultracold, bosonic Dy-162. The temperature of the spin-polarized Dy-161 is a factor T/T-F = 0.2 below the Fermi temperature T-F = 300 nK. The cotrapped Dy-162 concomitantly cools to approximately T-c for Bose-Einstein condensation, thus realizing a novel, nearly quantum degenerate dipolar Bose-Fermi gas mixture. Additionally, we achieve the forced evaporative cooling of spin-polarized Dy-161 without Dy-162 to T/T-F = 0.7. That such a low temperature ratio is achieved may be a first signature of universal dipolar scattering.