In a milestone for studying a class of chemical reactions relevant to novel solar cells and memory storage devices, an international team of researchers working at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory used an X-ray laser to watch "molecular breathing" -- waves of subtle in-and-out motions of atoms -- in real time and unprecedented detail.
These ripples of motion, seen with SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), allowed the team to study how energy is exchanged between light and electrons and leads to tension and eventually motion of atoms in an iron-based molecule that's a model for transforming light to electric energy and switchable tiny molecular magnets.
In a paper published in Nature Communications, the research team said these high fidelity, real-time measurements of ultrafast energy redistribution can provide key information to understand the function of many chemical, physical and biological light-induced phenomena.
"It's a significant leap in experiment sensitivity that now allows us to see more of what's happening," says Diling Zhu, staff scientist at SLAC. "We're zooming into the details of molecules as we achieve better and better resolution in both space and time."
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