We have produced a Mott insulating phase of ultracold 87Rb atoms in a three- dimensional optical lattice, and used photoassociation to probe the populations of the lattice sites. These measurements show that we can create an insulating phase with a central core of two atoms per site, containing about 50% of the atoms. Further, we have used stimulated Raman photoassociation to convert a large fraction of the atoms in doubly occupied sites into bound molecules, thus producing a low temperature gas of molecules loaded into the optical lattice. Finally, we have observed coherent Rabi oscillations between atoms and molecules in the optical lattice

Contact: Luis A. Orozco.