Optical molasses is a laser cooling technique that can cool neutral atoms to as low as a few microkelvin, depending on the atomic species. An optical molasses consists of 3 pairs of counter-propagating orthogonally polarized laser beams intersecting in the region where the atoms are present. The main difference between an optical molasses (OM) and a magneto-optical trap (MOT) is the absence of magnetic field in the former. Unlike a MOT, an OM provides only cooling and no trapping.