Molecules `pose' for photographs
WE ALL know the frustration we experience when we try to make small children stay still while we try to take photographs of them.
Tumbling motions
Similar is the case when scientists try to take photographs of gas phase molecules, which exhibit rapid tumbling motions, pointing in many different directions, causing blurring of any image that may be recorded.
Now, a new technique has been developed which will allow scientists to take photographs of such molecules in the near future from which it will be possible to map their atomic details as they rearrange and undergo chemical processes.
Using a pair of carefully crafted femtosecond laser pulses, a team of researchers at
The Open University and the National Research Council of Canada have forced molecules to line up in the same direction to `pose' for a photograph.
When combined with the ultra-fast shutter speeds such as those provided by ultrashort pulses of X-ray light produced at some of the world's largest facilities, such as the European X-Ray Laser Project XFEL near Hamburg, which is being built to meet just this goal.
This technique will allow for sharp images of isolated molecules to be recorded.
This new research "Field-free three-dimensional alignment of polyatomic molecules" is to be published in Physical Review Letters on November 3 2006. — Our Bureau
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