Sodium Bose-Einstein Condensates in an Optical Lattice
  The phase transition from a superfluid to a Mott insulator has been observed in a $^{23}$Na Bose-Einstein condensate. A dye laser detuned $\approx 5$nm red of the Na $3^2$S$ \to 3^2$P$_{1/2}$ transition was used to form the three dimensional optical lattice. The heating effects of the small detuning as well as the three-body decay processes constrained the timescale of the experiment. Certain lattice detunings were found to induce a large loss of atoms. These loss features were shown to be due to photoassociation of atoms to vibrational levels in the Na$_2$ $(1) ^3\Sigma_g^+$ state. 
K. Xu, Y. Liu, J.R. Abo-Shaeer, T. Mukaiyama, J.K. Chin, D.E. Miller,   W. Ketterle, Kevin M. Jones, Eite Tiesinga